


You'll Always Be A Part Of Me...

by fffan201



Category: Take That (Band)
Genre: Creamcakes, Donange, Emotions, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, barlliams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2018-12-24 08:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fffan201/pseuds/fffan201
Summary: We write the year 2017 (at least in the beginning in this FF) and actually the 25th anniversary of TAKE THAT should be on everyone's lips and will be celebrated extensively, but for two and a half years any plans were somehow on ice. While everything looked like a very harmonious life, and the friends were currently pursuing their private or professional happiness, one of them felt that he had to be caught up more and more by his past and thus had to make a subsequent decision on his part.





	1. Always Out Of Reach Ignoring Every Sign

******For once in my life I couldn't deny, **  
******I thought that I'd found my everything, **  
A lover a friend, the hours we would spend just doing nothing at all****

********** **

 

It was a long day in late April, and while the sun was sending its last warm rays towards the earth, a dark veil called Night had already set in on the eastern horizon and swallowing the world over England into a quite rapidly emerging darkness. Within a few minutes, there was a blackness that could only be seen once a month. In the coming, as well as in the following night, the moon would not be seen. Under these circumstances and the current good weather situation, the stars gained a little bit of luminosity due to the missing moon and thus radiated. At least as long as no man-made light came into play, and thus the magic of the firmament was taken tragically. Only if you were really in a remote place and thus far away from all the big cities, one was granted a breathtaking view into the infinite expanse of the universe.

At the current hour, when most people slowly began to think about going to bed, all the former and present members were around Take That on a huge estate and celebrated the birthday of their common friend and band mate Howard Donald. While he was from now on fifty years of age and still felt young and crisp despite the advancing age, today one had his problems with the fact that the time is currently more than agonizingly slow before. With the feeling that time had stopped somehow and that had been going on for months, the host of the birthday party, Gary, sat on the broad steps of a stepped staircase leading to his huge garden and was almost catatonic after his thoughts. The empty gaze directed forward, now and then leading to two of his friends, who were somewhere apart from him and wandering around, and holding an almost drowned bottle of vodka in his hands, left the image of a completely self-absorbed Gary somehow to be desired. Something was wrong with him. For a few weeks, he seemed as if his whole world had lost all meaning. Where really everything imaginable only can ran continuously down the stream and this more and more towards an unstoppable and deep depression. What would be happening, too, if he did not get together soon and resume his previous, orderly life. It had to be done more than urgently ... before he finally drowned all his worries with alcohol and sought the solution of all problems desperately on the grounds of a vodka bottle or the like.

 

"A beautiful evening, isn't it?" Gary suddenly heard a loud voice and made him feel even tighter in his body than he already was.

Since he already knew by the voice of who it was, Gary didn't even look up to this one person, and on his question only gave a simple and dumb shrug. To an oral statement about whether this evening had a certain appeal to beauty, Gary could somehow not pull up. Why should he, when he was at that time, seek his salvation in the world of alcohol, and thus make himself self-sufficient? When the said person, shortly afterwards, settled down on the steps and gazed at him with light sorrows, Gary felt the sudden urge to jump, and in a rather rude way by his friend, who was also the birthday present Promptly remove. ...What he didn't do after all.

Instead of letting Howard escape, he finally tried to get rid of the unavoidable by asking quietly and monotonously what the older one wanted from him at all.

"I ...I just wanted to thank you for celebrating my birthday party here. You should definitely know that that really means a lot to me ...and especially after what has been going on in the last two years." Howard tried to expand her conversation further and thanked his friend for that he organized this party here for him.

"No subject," Gary pointed out in a hurry, who thought it self-evident and hoped that this had been all.

With that one hope that there was not any more, Gary went to his slightly wobbly legs and only wanted to leave. He needed distance. After all, he had not looked for loneliness for about three-quarters of an hour. It had not been completely unfounded, and by the way, it was by no means the case that he wanted to be absolutely undisturbed, just so that he could pour himself unseen with alcohol. No. The real point was that he wanted to think about what had just happened in his life, and how he had to continue. In order to make the whole thing more bearable, he had nothing better than to have a vodka bottle to go with.

"Hey, Gaz. Wait for a moment," Howard could not let him pull it so easily, and grabbed it roughly on the upper arm.

"Let me go. You're hurting me." Even though Gary wanted to continue the mute, he had no choice but to tell Howard that he hurt him unintentionally.

"Sorry," the larger man instantly dismissed him from his obviously too firm grip and then tried to find out what was wrong with his little friend, "Is everything really all right with you?"

"Yes," Gary lied to him and disowned himself.

"Now come on Gaz. You really want to make me know that everything is okay with you? ...We all see that you are obviously fighting for something. Believe it or not, but no one wants to force you into something you don't want. You do not have to talk. OK? It is only important to us that you shouldn't remain alone in this constitution."

"In what constitution do you think I should be? By the time you were up, everything had been okay ...and since you were married to Jay, you sounded just like him. It may be that both of you are destined for each other, but that does not mean that you have to imitate his psychic giver. What has just become of the good old Howard, with whom I could still have a regular conversation for hours?"

"He's still me. Nothing has changed. ...Just because I am now a happily married man does not mean that you can't talk to me anymore. Just come back in and then ..." Howard assured him that since his wedding with Jason, which was a little more than two years ago, nothing had changed between them, and he was about to ask him to come back together Went into the house and talked to the sunrise over every conceivable shit, which came to their minds at all.

"And then what? Do I get into Dolby Surround something like a homily to listen, just because I want to be straight alone? ...For weeks, you have been besieging me as if I were the Pope himself. Is it too much to ask for, if I want to have time?" Gary climbed into it more and more.

"We're just worried."

"You can give it to yourself. For all of you, it has been a long time since only shit ...and something like that again scolds to themselves friendship." Gary felt the whole thing more than time-consuming and was the absolute and loud opinion that his friends had just completely forgotten the last and quite eventful years.

Years, which were easy for him as anything else and he couldn't even forget them in the least. Accordingly Gary also wished nothing more than ardently that everything came anyhow, finally, sometimes to an end. Just lie down to sleep and hope he never woke up again. On the one hand, Gary had no interest in volunteering in the hands of the grim reaper, but on the other hand, he did not want to live on. That what his friends called life, was for him already for a period of time no longer exist. With the ever-growing feeling of emptiness, which until recently was hard in his stomach, and now, thanks to Howard, completely filled, Gary finally sought out the distance and left his friend so simply.


	2. How Did It Come To This

After Gary was enveloped in a rather dark night and was no longer to be seen, Howard continued to stare in the direction in which his little friend had disappeared. Now it was official, Gary's problem would have to be considerably larger than had previously been assumed. With whatever he was struggling at the time, it seemed to him that Gary was no longer able to help himself by obviously seeking all his mastery in his friends. But because they lacked the necessary knowledge, why this one of them day by day removed a bit more and responsible for his problems, it appeared to a Howard and, of course, the other three guys, not quite fair. ...And in fact, every single one of them wanted to help Gary only so that he could find himself again and, if necessary, forget all the problems.

"What happened?" Suddenly a voice came out of the background.  
"I don’t know." Howard could only produce the words in a whisper, and he simply didn’t know how to deal with this very complicated situation, and he turned to him with a quite desperate and helpful look to his spouse, a few For a few seconds.  
"Didn’t you tell him we were on his side and just wanted to help him?"  
"So far I didn’t come at all. ...He had not even let me talk."  
"Perhaps it would have been better if I had talked to him."  
"I doubt it. ...He's been seriously reproaching me for the fact that I'm starting to sound like you do."  
"Should I talk to him?" Mark offered himself from the side unasked, who would move slowly to the two elders and would already try for Gary himself.  
"No offense, Mark. ...But a voice tells me that you can do something much less than anyone else." Howard did not believe Gary would listen to Mark.  
"What the hell is just going with him? How does he come to know that he couldn’t care for us? For weeks now, he's been out of our way, as if we had attacked him ...with great personality." Mark simply didn’t understand why Gary was getting more and more distant, and he obviously thought of his friends that they could have left him completely in the dark.  
"If you ask me, in my opinion, this has been going on for months. ...Whatever Gaz has, he should more than urgently think about opening up to us. For the more he withdraws, the more difficult it becomes for him to lead us with a normal and not a one-sided conversation. ...We need to lure Gary somehow out of the reserve and before it's too late." Jason spoke openly, letting the other guys know that something had to happen as soon as possible.  
"I think I should try it. Who knows ...maybe I can even convince Gary that he should at least open one of us." Mark did not want to leave anything untried.  
"You don’t really believe it, do you? ...I mean, in the worst case, he could feel completely interrogated by us and then does something what is out of character for him.” Jason feared that Gary could do something His person did not quite correspond.  
"You think he could be ..." Robbie did not bring it over his slightly anxious heart to put the sentence to an end.  
"I don’t know." Jason didn’t know what Gary could do.

While the boys thought that Gary could actually get carried away to a very rash act, they all fell into a deep hole that called silence. Except for the aggravated breathing, which now hung loudly in the air and made the lap incessantly, everything remained quiet, and none of the somewhat unusual quartet could even begin to lead this one thought or even to utter aloud.

"No. I'll be able to prevent that." Mark suddenly felt that he had to do more than absolutely do something about it and wanted to go to the search for his apparently suicidal friend.  
"Mark. Wait. ...You can’t go to Gary without thinking, and then tell him something he would never do." Howard immediately stopped him from doing something that he could regret afterwards and proved a serious mistake .  
"Howard is absolutely right. Now please don’t let me worry about God's sake. If the day is long and I take something very much with myself, I am talking a lot now and then it can be quite easy to say that I say what I didn’t want to say. ...Please Mark. Don’t carelessly, and if so, then go slowly. OK? ...A wrong word and you could inadvertently trigger an avalanche that can lead to whatever." Jason tried to persuade the little one that he wasn’t going to let his highly-cooked emotions lead him to a very probable mistake and grabbed him somewhat sensitive friend with the shoulders.  
"I just don’t want to see how Gary throws his life away," said Mark in a small voice and throwing a sidelong glance at his friend Robbie, who was standing there just as frozen and threw a blank glance at the ground.  
"Believe me, none of us wants. ...At some point, Gaz will come back to reason and realize that he has made himself completely groundless."  
"Hopefully."

 

Meanwhile, somewhere on this large plot, Gary lay motionless on a bench, staring at the depth of the universe before him, and losing himself from minute to minute. In the sight of a quite gigantic and an extraterrestrial world, which Gary was offered without restrictions, it was thus easy to fall asleep and free his current emotions. After an eternity, an over-zealous and much too light firefly rushed over him, but that had disappeared immediately after a few seconds. With the knowledge that it was much more about an already past shooting star, Gary could not weep after a single and lonely tear. This one shooting-tail reminded him painfully that his longing and greatest desire could never be fulfilled. But before he saw another, and Gary suffered a very probable and final collapse, the singer simply put an arm on his face so that he was practically blind. In essence, this image had something sympathetic in itself, but since Gary was still seeking his salvation in the world of alcohol, and he covered the thin neck of the vodka bottle with a slightly trembling hand, the whole thing gradually a little bit ...too melodramatic. At least for Gary’s circumstances. 

With the perpetual feeling that it was already after midnight, Gary believed to have already heard a low voice, which called him by his name. Due to the late hour and, of course, under the influence of the alcohol, he finally did so as an acoustic hallucination.

 

"Hey, Gaz." The slightly timid voice said again after less than a minute.

But since this voice had a real origin and didn’t leave him in peace until he reacted to it, Gary had to give at least a perceptible sign that he had registered this common troublemaker.

"Leave me alone," Gary merely put over his thin lips, explaining that he didn’t want to see anyone ...and especially not the one who was hiding behind this voice.

Mark. He was indeed the Last that Gary had ever expected. 

The fact that at least one of his so-called friends would be looking for him and would somehow appear here was more than foreseeable, and so Gary nevertheless secretly asked himself why he wasn’t even given his peace. What he needed at the time was time and not some kind of nervous friend who did not care about his true feelings. 

"Gary. I ...I just wanted to see where you are and ...whether everything is okay with you," Mark didn’t quite know how to do this difficult thing and started a very desperate attempt to get closer to his friend.  
"Do it and since you've found me, you can go right away," Gary said with a voice, letting him know that he wanted to be alone.  
"Gaz. Please. ...Of course, I don’t want to come too close to you and say what you already heard from us enough, but you should know that we are there for you. ...You're not going to care for us," Mark finally went to the thin ice, hoping that Gary would not put a fire under his feet, causing him to fall unhappily into the ice-cold water, "We all want to be a good friend for you. Just stand aside. No matter what your problem is. ...No more."

Although Mark had packed the whole thing in a rather gentle tone so as not to irritate Gary or even annoy him, the person concerned remained for the first more than frightening quiet, giving neither a muck nor any emotion. Much too quiet, as Mark felt. But before he lost another word about Gary being able to cry out with him with a clear conscience and, if necessary, to trust him, he gave his friend the time, as well as the space behind which he had obviously been running for weeks.

After five eternally long minutes, Mark had so gradually his doubts whether Gary had given him any ear. So he stepped forward two or three steps until he was standing on his side, trying to regain Gary's attention with a very cautious touch on his shoulder. But what turned out to be a serious mistake.

"Gaz? Have you ever listened to me?"

"I told you to go. What's so hard to understand?" Gary suddenly exploded, leaving all his emotions to the little Mark and pulling him even over his head with his vodka bottle.

While the bottle was breaking and Mark screamed with pain, the older man asked loudly why no one could leave him alone. Only after his friend had gone to the ground and came to lie down there, unconscious and bleeding, Gary began to slowly become aware of what he had done. Panic came up. He hadn’t wanted that more than absolutely. No. Definitely not. Even if Mark had been a thorn in his eyes lately, he didn’t want to be a bit of a grip on him ...and yet Gary had done it now.

God. How could it happen to him? What for God's sake had he only driven him to give a knockout to one of his best friends?

Without even looking to see if he had not injured his friend or even killed him, Gary was suddenly confronted with fear and immediately took his feet in his hands, just running away. Before someone else found him here, he had to leave this place quickly. Never in his life, or even in the least, would his oh so good friends forgive him this very untoward act on Mark. This was as safe as the Amen in the church.

Why should they, if he had been more than discriminated against by them for weeks?

No. Just because of this and because he couldn’t stand close to his boys, Gary had to get out of here ...and it was best for all time!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK. That was the second chapter. I will try to update once a week. Probably every Friday. I'm always looking forward to comments and kudos.


	3. Why Do You Bring Me To My Knees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. It's Friday. Time for a new chapter.

Hours passed. While on the eastern horizon the sun slowly showed its warm face and thus the still virgin and deep blue skies climbed, the eternal darkness disappeared visibly and the first birds already went on the great food search. With the dawn of the new day, which could not be more beautiful in itself, the light of the world came back again and announced, at least for the time being, a very beautiful time for the next few hours. But what was meant here now, …at least for the time being? Was there something like a hidden message in these words? That in the further course of the day there was something that no one expected? And how would it look like a scandal that would turn round all England and trigger more than a pure and general shake of the head?

 

As the sun tried to heat the surrounding cool air with its warm rays, the long-lasting silence was suddenly interrupted by a slightly agonizing groan. After a rather strange and dreadful dream, Mark found more than at last a way out of his unconsciousness, which had at some time in the middle of the night passed to a normal sleep rhythm, he seized himself thereby the head, which him the worst pain for a long time as well.

God. These headaches still killed him.

Mark was absolutely certain that yesterday he had drunk only a single and tiny glass of champagne and no more. Before Howard could spend half a century on his missing hump in the following year, he wanted to at least honor him by saying good-bye to him from his forties. It had been thought of only for pushing. At the same time, Mark had no interest whatsoever to go to the next corner together with Robbie and to revive her little alcoholics club. So, why did an extremely annoying woodpecker hammer his way into his head so much? However, he felt that he wanted to build his own republic.

As he had apparently spent the night in front of a bank, he was now using them to help him get back on his two wobbly legs and then had to sit down because of the sudden feeling of dizziness. While waiting for the carousel to end as soon as possible, Mark tried to review the last hours before the light was turned off. At first he remembered only that he had a serious conversation with Robbie and, to make him think differently, had been a little crazy. As far as he got the whole thing, the rest hid behind a heavy and pitch-black curtain.

But as a more accurate picture was denied him, Mark rubbed the last sand grains from his corner of his eyes and hoped that a somewhat less sleepy look would suffice to get a much better picture. Only a tiny puzzle piece, he did not want any more. But instead of a single remembrance, Mark was haunted by a stinging pain, whereupon he breathed the air through the clenched teeth hissing. Although the warming sun was trying to take the icy feeling of an inner cold, he was given another pain. With the careful touch of his left cheek, he could feel a rather vulgar injury, which had to be sewn.

As soon as the dizzy feeling was more than finally passed, Mark walked instantly on the legs and wanted only one thing. This inner cold, which had also settled in his bones and now completely filled him, again to get rid of and as fast as possible. Without further thoughts about any events of the last evening, he finally made his way back, whereupon the first step gave a more than clear crunch, thus attracting all his attention. When his questioning glance slid to the ground and saw a completely shattered vodka bottle, the memories of the last night came back to him immediately.

Gary!

After he had run after him to feel his friend's gentleness on the tooth and finally found him in a very bad condition, he was suddenly declared a target by the otherwise so peaceful Gary. 

 

What in God's name was only going on with Gary? The fact that he was now also beginning to beating his friends unconsciously testified to how he had been struggling with himself and questioning his entire life. Why did he do that at all? He couldn’t be happier in himself. He had made his tale of dreams true and by the way had great friends in whom he had found his family. 

Because since his fourteen-fifteen year, when he was sadly kicked out of his real family by the door, Gary was completely on his own and had to watch as he came along. It really hurt him that his parents didn’t want to know about any future plans in the music world and were not enthusiastic about them. They had thought that their son was doing decent learning and later on a more everyday job, which should remind him of where he came from. Since Gary wasn’t even interested in sitting down at a desk and pursuing any kind of paperwork, he broke off the school simply because of defiance and because he didn’t want to give up his dream. The consequence of this was that his family finally turned away from him and thus ultimately came to the door. It had then lasted for the three four years until, in Manchester, where Gary was now drawn, he was approached by a man who had seen him playing the piano and singing in a bar, whether he wouldn’t want to join him and to become part of a Boyband. Although Gary had actually seen himself on the stage by this time, he had said that without much thought about it. This was his great opportunity to establish himself in the huge music world and make a name for himself. For who had voluntarily renounced the adventure of his life to finally get out of the way? Surely no-one and a second offer he would not get guaranteed again. ... That was the birth of Take That.

From this point, the rest was only history, at least until two and a half years ago.

Looking back over the past two three years, so much had been done that not only did the overview get lost, but one or the other less eventful fact of their common history was swept under the non-existent carpet and thus completely forgotten. But what Gary was all about in this story was just Gary alone. In addition, he wasn’t an open book purely emotionally and so even one of his so-called friends didn’t possess the ability to cast a glance into his inner being and thus was difficult to say what his problem was. With whatever he had to fight, it had to burden him so much that Gary could no longer help himself by looking for a distance from everyone. A distance, that grew from day to day. If that were so far, Gary would at some time take a distance, where his friends wouldn’t see him then.

 

When Mark finally managed to leave a mile-long distance behind him, he stepped slowly to the terrace, until he finally stopped in front of a glass door and opened it quietly. As soon as he had taken the first step inside, Mark turned around and as he closed the door again, a voice came from behind him, asking where he came from. As if in slow motion, he finally turned to the person who had spoken to him at his request. Jason.

"Hey Mark. Where do you come from? I thought you were still sleeping the sleep of the righte... - For heaven's sake, Mark. So, what do you look like? What happened?" Jason scowled at Mark's sight and hurried to come to his side instantly, reaching for a blanket.

"G... Gary!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter you will then read how the guys are trying to find the conversation with Gary. But will he listen at all? Does Gary ever talk about himself? You will see all this next week. ... If you like this story, let me know. Even if my English is not the best, please tell me and I'll leave here with the publishing.


	4. To All My Friends I Leave Behind

As soon as Mark had pronounced the name, which had missed him this very unpleasant face, Jason thought he had been interrogated. Somehow he couldn’t imagine the least. Although he knew quite well that Gary was able to defend himself by all means, but this would never even in life even once dare to raise one of his friends opposite the hand. From what devil was he rode where he suddenly began to bend around? No. This was no longer Gary, whom he once knew. It was incomprehensible and simply said ...too much of the good.

After Jason Mark had moved to a large couch and then gently pushed him to the white leather cover, settling himself on the table in front, the smaller one revealed to him that Gary with his vodka bottle to him one had pulled the skull and thereby he became unconscious. Still unbelieving to what Gary had done, Jason could only shake his head and try to find a logical explanation in his actions. But a possible answer to it was still denied him and so he saw in front of him only a huge question mark. It was as if he were wandering about in a completely secluded darkness.

"What did you actually tell him that Gary to hit you?" Jason wanted to know about the circumstances.  
Mark looked at his friend more than visibly and then tried to revive his approximate words to Gary: "Only that we want to be a good friend against him and whatever his problem with us, stand by his side. ...That he doesn’t care us at all. ...If you ask me, there was not a single word in between, in which Gary may have felt strengthened in the fact that he must strike me down."  
"That's all? He had not even commented on it."  
"No. ...Since I first got the feeling that he hadn’t even listened to me, I carefully tried to make him aware of me. ...Shortly afterwards he struck me with the words that I should finally be cut off and why we can’t leave him alone."  
"What the hell is going on in him? At first he avoided us like the pest and now he becomes a batsman. …No. That's enough now. If he does, we have no other choice but to make our hands dirty."  
"Who's going to be a thug? Good morning, my darling." Suddenly a yawning voice was heard from the background, which clearly belonged to Howard, whereupon the latter then joined his partner, pressed Jason a fat kiss on his lips and finally turned to his interlocutor, whereupon he was visibly shocked at the sight and couldn’t leave it uncommented, "Whow. Mark. How did you get that?"  
"To be honest, that was Gary." Jason answered for Mark.  
"That was Gaz?" Howard suddenly grew pale, thus immediately raising his disbelief.

As a confirmation of this, he finally got a mute nod from Mark. Still while Howard was still staring at the little ones and inspecting Mark's face at the very least, he still heard Jason talk about whether they liked it or not, that they were going to have to take a harder pace. On the suggestion that they should talk to him immediately about this defect and his highly questionable behavior, they went to the next floor, where Gary had to lie in his bed and hopefully hated himself for his actions.

 

Scarcely were Mark, Howard, and Jason standing in front of the said room, they knocked Gary out of his sleep with initial caution and asked loudly if he was already awake. Whereupon an echo of her common friend failed. The only thing they heard from him was an icy silence. After about two minutes was still nothing and so was immediately launched another attempt, which also proved as a failure. To make their determination clear that they no longer included Gary's behavior towards them, their appearance became more aggressive and thus put him under pressure. 

"Gary? ...Whether you like it or not, we'll come in now and then I want to know more about you, what this whole theater is supposed to be." Jason was unaccustomed for his circumstances, encapsulated the door latch with one hand, and finally realized his threat.  
At the moment, when Jason wanted to open the door, another was opened and a sleepy, dreary Robbie appeared, complaining about the "nocturnal" retirement: "What's the noise out of here? It's still in the middle of the night."  
"You look terrible. When did you actually go to bed." Howard said Robby's present appearance and he wanted to know by the way, at what hour he'd been sleeping at night.  
"Phew. But you ask me something. ...Perhaps it had been like this around shortly after three. No idea,” Robbie tried half-yawning at an approximate time and was of the opinion that there was someone else in his midst who looked much worse than himself, “And as for the other, look at Markie. I bet he looks even more terrible than mine. ...Who set you up like that?"  
"Gaz." Brought the last mentioned briefly.  
"You're joking, right?"  
"Unfortunately no and that's why we're making the insurrection here. He's been beating Mark with a vodka bottle on his head and if you ask me what Gary did, it's going too far. ...I will no longer be watching this theatrical performance. It’s enough for me now. If he seriously believes that he must continue to mimic the silence of the lambs, I am no longer the " _Gary Whisperer_." He can safely forget that. ...My patience is finally at the end." Jason had to disappoint him that this wasn’t a joke and revealed to him in the same breath, his statement in relation to Gary.

With this one last sentence on the tongue, Jason finally opened the door and spoke into the room that they all had to talk to Gary more than urgently.

 

Despite all their expectations, the quite large bedroom showed only a gigantic and yawning emptiness, where nothing could be seen of Gary. The room and above all the bed, which was untouched, looked as if Gary had spent the night elsewhere. Of course, none of the friends wanted to panic or worried about Gary's life, but the perpetual feeling that something was wrong, was persistent. Even if Gary had retired to a mysterious and possibly remote place in the past few hours, that wasn’t to say that he would do something unthinking. The fact that Jason had some time ago raised his concerns about this, was only a consequence of his own fear, which he really didn’t want to say. What happened to him quite rarely ...and besides, Gary wasn’t brave enough in this respect to do anything to himself. The scenario, where a completely self-absorbed and full-dressed Gary was under a cold running shower, Jason would probably be the most likely. Even though no suspicious sounds of any kind could be heard from the adjoining bathroom, Jason couldn’t and didn’t want to ignore this possibility. There had to be a searching look. But before he took the first step in that direction, Robbie's voice suddenly came from the background that he had made a discovery and that he couldn’t keep it from his three other friends for a second.

"Guys. ...You wouldn't believe what I’ve found here. ...A goodbye letter!!"  
"What? ...You can’t really mean that. Show it to me." Howard couldn’t believe the first and ripped Robbie with the approaching and upholding letter from his hands.  
Right now, Jason was seized by an irresistible fear that Gary could have done something unthinking, he immediately stormed into the nearby bathroom, but he didn't find an unmoved friend in the end. The quite bright room was, as the bedroom also, perfectly pointed. As anxiety didn’t seem to be banned for a long time, he finally returned to his friends, who gave him an understanding and equally anxious look.  
"What ...what does it say?" Mark asked, with a shaky voice, quite anxiously.  
Howard gave his little boy a quick glance until he put it back on the letter and while he was reading the letter aloud, his voice grew more and more like the sound of Gary.

 

**Guys, ****I know it wasn’t always easy and so we had our differences, but you should know that I really liked every single one of you since the first hour on. Even though in our earlier days I was only looking for success, I wanted to do it all by myself and you looked at me like a selfish tyrant, you were all part of me ...and that to this day.** ****

********

****

**But now that my past has caught up with me and I have not been a part of you for a long time, I have to take this step with a heavy heart. I have to give up the music once and for all and leave the country forever. There's no other way. It must be. Because, thanks to certain people, to whom you unfortunately also belong, I will never get rid of the lasting feeling that has changed in my life this has fundamentally changed. It doesn‘t.**

**Nothing has happened in the last 25 years. No matter what I do, this everlasting and the same crap, will always accompany me. In order to get my life back on track, I have no choice but to put my fate and leave it all behind me. ...Including you.**

**I'm sorry.**

**Gary.**  
**PS: Don’t seek me.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know my English is not the best. But I'll try to make it better and rework over with the time.


	5. Wait! There's Something That I Want To Say

As soon as Howard had finished reading the letter, the charm around Gary's voice was just as fast as it had been, and so they tried to recall the words. But it didn’t help. After ridding the mind of an unread document, it could not be reversed. Only the written words remained. Gary had now completely disappeared and became more than unattainable for the friends. Was this really the last time that they had heard the wonderful sound of her common and obviously almost desperate friend, who longed for a simple change after whatever? He could not seriously consider that? What was he running like this from now on?

Before his past, which allegedly threatened him to catch up again?

Before his friends, who apparently appeared to be all-too-trivial and just because he felt somehow discriminated against by them?

Or, was it more before itself?

No matter what reason Gary had fled, none of the remaining guys could say for sure.

 

"I cannot believe it. ...Gary runs away from home?" Mark broke the icy silence after an eternity and just didn’t understand what his one year old friend wanted to do with it.

"I'd say he's running away from himself. Apparently Gaz thinks that he has to throw away his whole life just because it is his fate. ...Perhaps we had really exaggerated a bit lately, forced ourselves on him," Howard feared that they were not entirely innocent of Gary's departure.

"You don’t mean to say that Gaz is only cut off because we have forced him against the feeling of inadequacy because of our behavior and so the guilt is to be found with us?" Mark immediately understood what this was saying to him, "It may be that for a few months we have been concentrating more on ourselves and thereby kept our friendship as self-evident, but that's still not a reason to think that he's shitty. He would have better know that this is not true and we are like brothers. We had even made it easy for him and gave him the chance to open up, but for some reason he preferred to be in silence."

"So if you ask me, I think both as well. ...The fact, that he simply gives up everything in this way shows that he has a profound problem with himself. However, it is not excluded that we could be in a sense responsible with it. I do not know why he sees the complicit in us, but it's clear to me that he runs away from us, too." Jason thought it was certain that Gary's problems went much deeper than they thought Might have to do with the friends themselves.

"No. I cannot and will not tell you of the best will I could be responsible for Gary's escape," Mark just did not believe.

"And how do you explain his farewell letter, where he is stiff and firm in asserting that we belong to the people who make him feel that nothing has changed in his life? This is clearly against us."

"But I did not do anything to Gary."

"That is it. No one has done anything to him and yet he thinks of us that we are no longer a good friend with him and have driven him to escape. ...I see that just like Doug, we should have given Gaz a little more space, then the whole might not have happened."

"Hey, Rob. Wait. What are you up to?" Mark suddenly noticed that Robbie, with a slightly hanging head, quietly and secretly turned away from the small group, apparently running away from their current situation.

"Guess what? I will look for my friend and then hopefully convince him that he cannot leave me so easily. ...I mean, of course, to ourselves. That he should come back home. ...You can all stand around here and talk about why Gaz doesn’t want us around anymore or what we are supposed to have done to him, but I will by no means see how he throws away his whole life And thus goes into exile at all times. No. Certainly not. ...I'm not going to let that happen." Robbie explained to his remaining and debating friends in an uproarious voice that he was going to do everything he could to get Gary back from his path of obvious self-destruction.

"Do you think we just want to let him go? ...It’s just that he can be who knows where. He might even have left the country. To all abundance, he also wrote that we shouldn’t look for him. He does not even want to be found by us ...and besides, where do you want to begin your search?" Howard pointed out to him that neither of them had the intention to let Gary go so easily, and that he was sure about it All the mountains was.

"First of all, this is me from shit, and secondly, did you forget who he is? He is now no x-any person. Lord God, he is Gary Barlow. Even if he has already left the country, somebody must have seen him. ...He cannot get out of the picture so easily and quickly. This is absolutely impossible. There you have both, you and Jay, the better chances to hide from the world. But not Gaz. ...As I said, you can leave my legs here for hours on end, but I will definitely do something before it finally disappears from the picture and is therefore for us as untraceable. ... I don’t want to lose my best friend." Robbie talked more and more about Rage and tried to convince his three older friends that they should not wait longer to find Gary.

 

With these words and visibly kinked, Robbie left the room at once, first looking up the guest room where he'd been over the night, preparing himself for a long and hard day. It was to be a day, which Robbie couldn’t forget so quickly in his whole life. After he had a more than unsuccessful telephony at all the famous stations and airports, whether on domestic or foreign trips, he even wanted to give the police a missing-picture. But since the officials made such an announcement public only after twenty-four hours, they were told by Robbie that the missing person was Gary, so they were at least half the time. Robbie did not like it either, because that would mean for him to wait five more hours. In Robbie's eyes, however, that was still decidedly too long. In order to be able to overcome this time somehow, he tried to get to the infamous I-icing. ...He did indeed put any kind of media there was knowing that Gary had disappeared without a trace and asked the population for help after his search.

Despite the warning words that Jason had given him before, that Gary could get rid of them, and they never really saw him in the end, Robbie wasn’t interested. Robbie just wanted to tell his little friend, no matter where he was hiding, that he would search for him until he found him. Even if he had to go around the world at least once and bury his remaining life, only to look for his lost friend and thus know again in her little circle. Though Gary had not been lost for twenty-four hours, he already missed him as hell. OK. They had not seen each other for several months, but there were quite different circumstances. The last time they had not seen each other for a long time, was about three four years ago, when he went on tour with his last released solo album. Although they had been in a certain form, but this was more to some SMS or even singular telephone calls. 

In the early evening, after the police released Robbie's missing ad and made public, the entertainer could even win a short TV appearance. However, since he didn’t want to do it alone, he persuaded his three remaining friends to stand by his side and together, as a group, personally asked Gary to think things over again and apologize in advance Would have hurt him in some way. So it came about, as soon as the top news station BBC had reported the block over Gary's sudden disappearance to the end, that their message to the missing singer went on transmission and thus over all flicker boxes were transferred.

 

" _Gary. Wherever you are, we hope you see this here and come to the realization that we didn’t mean to annoy or even hurt you. You just have to believe us. It may be that we have recently considered our friendship as self-evident and that you may have somehow ...let us feel left out of us, but that is still no reason to run away from us. Do you know how much you hurt us? _" Howard turned to Gary.__

" _Howard is right, Gaz. First of all, running away is not a solution and second, we had already given you several times the chance to talk to us. But then you started to distance yourself more and more from us and you also think that you are completely equal to us. You are certainly not and have never been. I don’t understand how you come up with the insane idea that you can just throw away your whole life just to fit yourself into your so-called fate. ...Besides, you have said again and again that **we** are your destiny and are for you as a family. So why are you running away from your own family and leaving us in the dark? _" Jason agreed with Howard in his little speech and then let Gary know that he lacked the necessary understanding and made of it.__

“ _Hey Gaz. I ...I just wanted to let you know that I'm fine. More or less. Even if you give me a ...well, you know what I mean. I do not really want to say this now. ...On the whole, I just want to tell you that I don’t blame you. ...If you come back home, I will forgive your offense. So please ...come back. _" Before Mark publicly asked his friend to make a turn, he was primarily ready to accept Gary and forgive him for his assassination.__

" _Gaz. ...Buddy. ...Please don’t be angry that we do this here. First of all, it was my own idea and not the others. I only gave them a right to participate, because I did not want to do it all by myself. ...Basically everything was already said, but I want to add one. As you have already written, that we have always been part of your life for you, you have been to me. ...I mean, of course, to ourselves. We already miss you. ...Please Gaz. **We want you back for good**_.” Robbie was the last to appeal to Gary's conscience, letting him know by the way how important he was to them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know my english is a bit shit. But I hope, you liked the Story.


	6. Since I Saw You Last

After the news that the Take That singer Gary Barlow had disappeared without a trace was made public in England, the rest of the world soon became aware of the fact that the United Kingdom missed one of its most important national heroes. Although most of the big TV stations and newspapers responded to this, they also took care of this matter to help with the search around the world, but only a few reports came in, where some actually claimed to have wanted to see Gary. Unfortunately, it proved to be a duck every time. The one or the other view had perhaps a certain slight similarity, but the actual search remained disappeared. There was not even the slightest indication of where he had been. If you didn’t know any better, you could now claim that Gary was swallowed up. As a result, the question soon arose whether he was still alive at all. Because with every day that went to much too far land, the fear grew ever more immeasurable that any Gary's rotting corpse could be found in a stinking alley.

But that was a thought, with which one like Robbie did not want to deal. He was more than absolutely certain that his little friend was still alive. The question was just where? Where would he be hiding? 

 

Several years passed and while the world, already after not even an entire year had declared the missing pop star either as untraceable or in part even for dead, the former entertainer and singer Robbie Williams, unlike one like Howard, Jason or Mark, in spite of such headlines, by no means prevent them from searching completely alone for Gary. He wouldn’t stop until he had found him. Even if his little friend, according to rumors, had already found his death, he wanted to know already a strong proof in his hands. But as long as he did not have anything in that direction or even saw Gary's corpse, but Robbie could do without anything more than anything else, he didn’t want to be so simple. Regardless of what was in his way, Robbie showed a more than amazing inner strength, which encouraged him to continue fighting. It was a fight on a high level. In addition to the various natural catastrophes and a number of other possible dangers lurking outside him in the wide world, he also fought against himself.

As soon as Robbie had almost finished a foreseeable, unsuccessful and energy-consuming year, his darkest side tried to persuade him that it was all a waste of time and that he didn’t even see Gary again until his life. With the resultant self-doubt, as well as that of the complete discouragement, he was really close to ending this lifelong search just so, and to forget his friend with it once and for all. But what finally didn’t come into a question. No. This one friend, who had been more than a brother to him, and he had already gone through this darkest hell with him, it was definitely worth him to sacrifice him one hundred percent. ...That he went to the other side of the world for him. 

 

So, after a four-year search, Robbie was now on the Australian continent and tried his luck there. Who knows, maybe all the many kangaroos and koala bears had seen the missing Gary. Ironically, he could even imagine how one of the kangaroos threw a more than very cautious, curious and quite desperate look in the bag and asked loudly for the presence of his friend.

But now joking aside, having already left behind the very large cities like Darwin in the north, Sydney in the east, and southeast Melbourne, as well as their nearer surroundings, he finally moved to the west of Perth. If his search there also proved as a relapse, it should then probably be that he rented as usual also a rental car and thus by the Australian Outback boards. Somehow, it was logical that Gary would be more hidden in a much smaller and more unknown place than in any major city. On the other hand, it was quite conceivable that this man was constantly in motion and left the place without further ado after only a few months. For if it were really so, this search could involve more than just his remaining life, until one day he could no longer find his own death somewhere on the street. 

As the city of Perth, as well as the suburbs in their mining offices, had no a missing pop star, Robbie finally got himself on a rather adventurous ride, which he would not soon forget. A journey, that should change its own life from the ground up and sustainably. 

 

After more than over hundreds and hundreds of miles in the direction of the north and several days, Robbies lives accepted a drastic idiom which he would never have expected thus. He was just about to enter the next and really more than a small town, where suddenly a huge truck came out of nowhere and pushing him off the road. In his evasion, however, he overlooked a ditch that became his doom. Shortly after the tires had become stuck in the said trench and thus wedged, the car was already nearly covered by the film and remained on the roof in the same manner. But the unsightly sight of an accident robbed by the side mirror caused the truck driver to step on the brakes once more, until his vehicle finally came to a standstill. In the ensuing second, he jumped out of his driver's cabin and hurriedly came to the side of the victim. 

As soon as the slightly bullish-looking guy struck at his side, he quickly asked with an anxious glance into the interior at the driver, who had been doing something about it: "Mister? ...Mister? Is everything okay with you?"

But there was no answer.

Robbie was unconscious. At first glance, he seemed uninjured in spite of the many cuts in the face, but when you looked closely, the unnatural attitude showed that the left arm was broken. The truck driver would want Robbie to free himself from his locked-up prison more than anything else and only too gladly because of his position, but he couldn’t do it alone. He needed help. He turned around his own axis once and threw a strained glance into the distance, until finally, in the setting evening sun; he made a walker out and asked for help. But as the stroller had obviously sunk in his thoughts, he didn’t even show the slightest reaction, and shuffled his hands, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. It was not until after the second attempt, and under arms waving wildly, as well as still louder, that the driver, as hoped for, gained his attention. The addressee ran over to the truck driver immediately and then let him explain what had happened.

After the two had briefly discussed how they were to tackle Robbie's rescue, the stroller crawled from the other side into the car's interior as he was a little smaller and narrower, and instantly stiffened. At the sight of the injured driver standing in front of him, where a part of the bone emerged from the left arm, leaving a rather unpleasant and bleeding wound, he had to swallow once. At first, he hesitated and wanted to see the distance again, but the pulsating something in his chest, which also called heart, advised him to somehow ignore the frightening image and free Robbie from its penned and not particularly beneficial position. While the bullish type Robbie grabbed carefully under the axes shortly afterwards and to hold him with gentle force in still that one position, the smaller one gave him the warning that he should be more than careful because of an open fracture. On this promise to tackle the whole thing with caution, finally the tightened belt was released and the truck driver pulled the unconscious Robbie out of the car with velvet gloves.

No sooner did the former Take That singer make himself a bat, and the emergency doctor was summoned, who arrived in a few minutes. After the medics Robbie expertly made for the journey transportable, it went directly with blue-light and sirens to the nearest hospital, where he finally underwent emergency surgery.

 

There passed about 48 hours, since Robbie with the diagnosis of a not impossible concussion which came an one or other bruised rib and an open fracture to the hospital and not even was there up to the present day with consciousness. The whole time he was either, as already mentioned, unconscious, narcotized or was simply in an exceedingly normal sleeping state. But what was to change in the course of the day, and then he found the way back at the midday hour and the whole thing more than just groaning, the way back among the living. While his entire upper body was still suffering from sustained pain, and he felt the persistent feeling that a Eucalyptus eating koala bear with a live weight of at least ten kilograms, he was somewhat difficult to open his eyes.

But when he finally managed to fiddle with the world, at least, for a small gap, Robbie saw a black silhouette in front of him that only grew damned slowly and under increasingly tortuous conditions. Only after a felt eternity, revealed to him the image of a full-bearded man who glared at him with a slightly icy and dark expression. Since the sight of his counterpart wasn’t quite aroused and gave him a rather uncomfortable feeling, Robbie first explored his nearer surroundings to know where he was staying. On the realization that he was more than obvious in a hospital, his gaze wandered back to the one guy who had not even let him out of his cold eyes all the time. So, if that was his doctor, Robbie could already say "Good night" and welcome himself in hell.

Great. Now he also knew why Australia bore the nickname Down Under. ...From here the way could not be wide up to the real hell, any more. But the longer he looked into his eyes, the more slowly his face seemed familiar. If the beard and slightly grayed hair were not, this one man could be really flatly his long-missing friend. With every single second that passed away, where they still looked each other in the eyes of the other, he did not get rid of this perpetual feeling that he had to be.

No. He was it. There was no doubt at all.

"G ...Gaz?”


	7. Holding Back The Tears

No sooner had Robbie pronounced the name of his counterpart, he didn’t even show the slightest emotion, and stared at him with a petrified expression until, at any rate, he raised his rough voice to a little more than a whisper and monotonously asked what his Former friend, "What are you doing here?"  
"I’m looking for you." Robbie didn’t understand how Gary could ask such a question at all.

Was not it obvious what he was doing here? Looking for him? Okay. In his farewell letter it was clear that he didn’t want it. But had he really expected that someone like him would? Actually, Gary would have to know better that he couldn’t just sit idly sitting down and look for him.

"I ...I wanted to see you again," Robbie whispered, not even once, to see his friend in the eyes.  
„Because you've found me and have also seen now, I can disappear again. …Goodbye, Rob!“ spoke from Gary the bitterness and indifference in One and while he rose to his chair, this gave him on parting a few more easy words to make clear Robbie with the fact that it more than was final.  
"Gary. No. …Wait. ...Please," Robbie begged him and took a different position, but he did not get anything from him until the pain came.  
"I'm sorry. ...Maybe in the next life." Gary didn’t even soften so much, so she turned Robbie back once and for all.

 

When he stood outside the door and wanted to devote himself to his only escape, the latter was opened from the other side, and so Gary looked into three faces, not quite unknown to him, whereupon his heart stopped suddenly. ...It was none other than Howard, Jason and of course Mark.

_Shit_

Not still them. Gary had already guessed that they would turn up somewhere, but not so fast. Now there was nothing to say, and to disappear from here quickly ...before they recognized him.

With the hope that it didn’t happen as soon as possible, Gary dared more than a right desperate escape right through the middle. While he was trying to cheat on the three, he muttered something of an excuse and when Gary thought he was finally through, he was actually being addressed by one of the guys. But it was not a remark that he should be better off or the like. No. ...It was more than just that. 

"Gary?"

To his attribution, as well as to the obvious fact that he had been recognized, Gary wanted nothing more than to be in a different place and was about to take his legs in his hands, until he suddenly from a very aggressive Howard on the shoulder packed and then, with the words, "No. Forget it. ...You stay here.", was thrown back into Robbie's sick-room. In his so-called deep flight, however, he took a chair with him and then fell more than unhappily on his right forearm, where Gary remained lying with a pain-distorted face. This momentary and infernal pain, which he was just hearing, was definitely the worst, at least from a purely physical point of view, what he had ever felt. Compared to these frightful ice baths and also the earpins, which he had received from his parents at the time, they were quite harmless. Although Gary had no medical knowledge at all, he already knew that his right wrist was sprained.

Good God. That hurts. 

 

Still while Gary lay furthermore on the ground and everything in it put this persistent pain anyhow to endure, hastened to Jason and Mark to theirs in the sickbed-recumbent friend called Robbie to reach and Howard stopped, nevertheless, rather with crossed arms before the door. 

"Hey Rob. How are you? ...As far as we've heard, you must have a pretty stunt. I've always told you that you should leave the overlays to Howard or me." Jason wanted to know just how the youngest of the band was going after his car accident and, besides a loose saying, couldn’t resist a big grin.  
"Very funny.", Robbie didn’t feel so funny, because this stupid car accident wouldn’t have to be, and instead of responding to Jason's question, he just turned around his interrogation, "But, what are you doing here?"  
"Really Rob. You're serious asked about what we're doing here? Isn’t that obvious? ...First, we were called and secondly, you are and remain simply our friend. This is what friends do, and especially when they are as close as we four!" Jason said, even though they all lived their own and little happiness, they were still like brothers, and for all of us, without exception, aside were standing.

_…we four!_ echoed the last two words, like an incessant echo, nor through all the auditory passages which were present here.

This was now more than clearly against Gary and so they all looked to the still lying something, which they once knew in their midst and had really called him as a very good friend.  
The one, who had to destroy everything in their eyes. The one, who had to say something without a word, had simply disappeared and blown away. The one, who made every single one of them indispensable for his problems and that although none of the friends had done him anything. Just because of this, it was no surprise that they had regarded Gary as a traitor for years. Well, to be honest, this point of view came more from Howard and so he stood largely alone. After an initial disappointment that Gary hadn’t looked at him as one of his friends and had thus sneaked out of his life, the irresistible rage came. The rage that this miserable bastard had betrayed their common history for all time and had finally ended ...and also without any plausible reason to reveal.

Mark and Jason, on the other hand, were simply disappointed by Gary, who made them all and more than seriously, why, always responsible for his problems.

 

While they watched each other in a subsequent and quite frosty silence, as Gary groaned and more than painfully slowly again installed itself on the feet, the three new arrivals looked at their former friend in depth, wondering what had become of him in the last four years was. This full-bodied and somewhat disheveled fellow, who also presented himself in a worn-out jeans and a frayed shirt, couldn’t possibly be Gary ...and yet he was.

As he is, lives and breathes.

Perhaps it may be that Gary had lost all the visual charm, and his sight was quite necessary, but he still had the typical facial expressions he knew. Striking the right eyebrow, lifting. Okay. In the world, there were a lot of people who did the same thing, but as soon as Gary started, the friends knew immediately that behind it was washable Barlow. Exactly, just like now. For this reason, he was recognized by them, so that one such as Howard had stopped at the fastest time and could stop him from a sudden and hasty escape. But Howard would have acted just a second later if Gary had been up and gone.

 

As soon as Gary found himself again on his two shaky legs, he held up his injured forearm slightly and pressed it gently against the upper body. As the pain did not diminish and he wanted to be alone by himself, he threw a very cautious side glance at the tall one, and now muscular-haired Howard, who stood before his only escape. It was hopeless. He wouldn’t go past him. He sat in the trap.

God. How could he have been so stupid as to at least once to see Robbie, whether the latter also had his emergency surgery well over? ...That was his final downfall.

Under the growing and no longer restrained sense of absolute despair and also of helplessness, Gary trotted more than tired to the nearest window, where he then leaned against the wall with his right shoulder and stared out into the world before him. Within a few seconds, Gary was able to completely hide his surroundings and sank into a distance as he'd done it all too often in the last four years. As he became one with the infinite expanse, and all around him surrounded himself in a dense and sound-insulated veil, every single past came back to the surface. The everlasting shadow of time had once again attracted him, and he immediately demanded a tribute from Gary, which he had to follow posthumously, so that he could forget the whole thing here and somehow. ...His soul.

All the while Gary was still standing at the window, staring at an empty, almost non-viable, look, the former singer even fought with his tears, but he could still swallow somehow. It was only through his abnormally great resistance that he was able to keep it for himself at all. …At least still.


	8. You Can Look Back, But Don't Stare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really important to me, I would be very happy if you leave me your opinion.

After the friends had quietly watched as their mutual and former friend turned away from them and showed his back in the cold, it seemed to them as slowly as if they just wanted to ignore them. What he had accused of the guys four years ago, he seemed to be doing the same thing with them now. Apparently, Gary wanted to show them how he had once felt in their presence. If this was really the case, why couldn’t he communicate with his simplicity? Instead of running away from whatever it is. Gary should really know that they had been there for him without exception and he could sometimes cry out with them, ...which had never been used before. 

Although only three minutes had passed and it almost felt like half an eternity, Howard could no longer keep his long anger, which had been built up to this day, and broke this icy silence more than explosively: "Now it's enough for me. …Bloody hell. Gaz. Stop it. Stop playing with this more than stupid and fucking game with us and let us stand still as the idiots. I will not allow you to show me anymore, just because I’ve come too close to you. You can forget about this and I'll tell you right away, if you do not even finally unpack what it's all about, you've finally died for me. ...So, what in devil's name is just going wrong with you?"   
"Doug," Jason interrupted instantly as Howard waited seriously for an answer from Gary, letting him know at a glance that he was going too far.  
"What? This bastard here should calmly know that I despised him for what he has done abdicated and that he has already been dead in my eyes for years. If you seriously expect from me to let myself be persecuted by him and be like an idiot, you have been very wrong. He is the one who has broken everything and not me. ...He didn’t deserve it otherwise! For my part, he can take a rope and hang up the next tree!!"  
"Howard! You're not serious, right? ... And besides, you can not say that in Gary's presence." Mark was terribly horrified at how Howard could talk about someone they had once referred to as a friend and who was also among them. 

No. This really did not go. With this the older man was now even more rightly shooting himself out. 

"Babe. Please. You know I'm standing behind you a hundred per cent and can absolutely understand your rage on Gary, but Mark is right there. This was really unnecessary and unsuitable at the same time. ...You can’t bring anything like that. Not even in a joke." Jason agreed with the smaller at all points, one shouldn’t even mention something like that against his worst enemy.  
"It may be that I have just exaggerated it and have gone beyond goal, but the fact is that this miserable crap of a traitor has broken everything. ..."  
"It was all broken before," Gary suddenly exploded out of nowhere, letting all those present guys here know with an exceedingly loud and rather unfamiliar, harsh voice,that he didn’t have the band on his conscience and that they were all to blame for it, "You. You alone have destroyed everything. Not me. ...Actually every single one of you had made their own contribution to it and you had to also remind me that even in my life nothing changed and it will never be. Do you ever know how you have discriminated against me?"   
"What are you talking about? We had never spoken to you about how do you to lead your life, or simply to throw it away, just because the whole thing is supposed to be your destiny." Jason said suddenly, shocked and just did not understand what Gary wanted to tell them, and why he felt discriminated against by the guys, whereupon he threw him away all his life.

But Gary left out any conceivable answer and so the former singer, with shaking shoulders, was still leaning against the wall and gave himself the greatest trouble to keep his whole and about all years away to dammed up emotions for himself. Though this had resigned itself with the time that one couldn’t have everything what one wished, but now, where his past has found him here and caught up with it again, it was anything but easy. It was as if someone were throwing a whole carload of salt into his still open wound. While Gary’s life flame had already been extinguished for a long-lasting eternity, hit of pain against it continually in this endless width from nothing that he had been on since the very beginning of this story. ...If not a few more years. 

 

Since Gary had now fled again in his own little world, in order to get a good distance from this much too painful reality, he did not get along as he was constantly asked by his former bandmates to finally turn around and make an answer to all their questions.

But why should he put himself to them at all when his pain was rekindled by their sight alone and thus assumed a new intensity? Why? Because of this one question that was just in his head, he could kill himself right now, to finally put an end to the whole here once and for all. But that Gary had not done so far, just because he was able to build a life down here in Australia, far from all his problems, which had been planned for him. A life in absolute loneliness, where he pursued a stinknormal job on the way around it could just as well over the water. 

When the friends were tired of talking against a wall, Jason finally voluntarily went to the Lion's Cave, standing by the side of that nameless thing, carefully placing a hand on his shoulder. With gentle pressure, he could still make him think that Gary showed more than once finally completely his face. With more than tightly closed eyes, in order not to have to see her and with a very heavy breathing, he finally stood in the middle of the room and looked frighteningly at the guys like more than a shadow of himself. That he also fought with himself left the overall picture of Gary very much to be desired. The last four years had left him much more traces than with the boys, and so was the sight of Gary, rather with a shipwreck, which had been lying on the seabed for centuries. There was absolutely nothing at all, of course, to the eyes and the corresponding and typical movement of the right brow, which they once remembered from their common old friend and colleague.

"I beg you Gaz. Please do not make it so difficult for us and especially for yourself. ...What has become of you? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror for the past four years? You can not possibly call this your destiny here." Jason could shake his head more than just shaking his head with a whisper.  
"Jay?" Howard suddenly tried to win Jason's sole attention and as he looked over at him, the older one glanced at Gary's left hand, which he had clenched to a slightly shaky fist and his knuckles already white, that he was about to hit him.

It wasn’t a second too late, because exactly in that moment, Gary wanted to let his fist speak for himself, so Jason could just escape the rather powerful punch. It had been very tight.

"Are you crazy? What the hell was that supposed to be? Until a second ago, I was seriously trying to ignore your sudden departure and missed the fright of life. …But you know what? Howard’s right. You’ve really destroyed everything what we had been built-up together and for that alone, you are also not longer worth any more to deal still furthermore with yourself. As you have already said, you have been, and will always be, a selfish tyrant. ... Live quietly your so-called destiny." Jason loudly gave up his last hope, that Gary perhaps still had a better, whereupon he went back home again and finally let him know that he was more than disappointed by his former friend and had thus lost all value to him.  
"That just says the right person. Have you already forgotten everything? You had begun the beginning of the end! ...Not me." The volcano sleeping to date, called Mount Barlow, brought his all and dammed up emotions in a huge outbreak to days, "And I had tried my best to convince you not to do so. But then you had to leave us in fact on the advice of your "oh so dear-lovely" fiancée just in such a way. After your exit, you both had to announce to all the abundance that neither Rob, Mark nor my one were on the guest list to your wedding. Now I don’t know of course how the both had felt this at that time, but this had extremely hurt me. It is not of course in such a way that I grant this luck to you both by no means, however, with it you have given me the feeling I am not any more a part of this family. The only family I really loved and was everything for me. Do you really know how that is when your replacement family constantly shows you what is missing and you will never get it? Do you really know how it is when you are expelled from your own family and told that you’re died for them? Do you know when it was the last time, when I saw my parents and what I had to hear from them? It had been on that day when your wedding was and they had told me seriously and icy in the face that they had no son. ...They deny my existence ...and that just because I always wanted to make music! Only music. I admit that I had seen myself alone on the stage at my beginnings, but since you have been kicked and enriched in my life, I wanted to conquer nothing more other than which we too fifth the world. Too fifth. When we were only four on the way, I had always hoped that Rob would be back at the next record. What he finally did after fifteen much too long years. After we had promoted _Progress_ and had promised to each other that we would all the time be together, I thought seriously that there would never be anything to shake. But shortly afterwards you had to break the promise, one after the other. Once again Rob had to start and then you Jay, whereupon you then had to take me Howard after your wedding. Since then our barely begun and unfinished seventh album is under a meter high dust layer. One wonders who is really selfish here. You all are not even in the least different. Up to our twenty-fifth anniversary there was still a little time and since I still had the last hope that you would change your mind, I had clinged all the more to this spark. But when I realized that you'd rather have more of your own career or private happiness, every one of you had to show me, what my parents told me when I told them that I wanted to be a musician. ...That in my life always something will be missing. Either the music or the very good   
luck, as you have obviously been doing it for half an eternity. Thanks to you ...and especially because of you Mark, I have nothing more! ..."

After Gary finally managed to get rid of all his frustration in the last few years, he finally threw the four boys, and especially Mark, a more than amply injured and watery look, until the latter became friends and foes, with the four now meanwhile only more fleeting acquaintances and ran out of the room.


	9. So Much Better When I Close My Eyes

As soon as Gary had once again taken the flight, there was more than this terrible silence, where the friends then delivered a regular and unfair star duel with the door. But no matter how long they did, the first one would sooner or later collapse and voluntarily give up this senseless fight. What, however, was only a matter of time. In that case, it took only two three minutes for one to lower his gaze and give himself to the silence just so. Under these circumstances, a discomfort grew, which made the whole thing even more intolerable than it already was, and none of the present here ever felt so. With every single second, who for nothing and again nothing went into the country, likewise the desire rose to want to do something, only to be able to tackle this terrible silence. But no one ever dared to make the start and thus melt the proverbial ice, where they finally broke in and landed in the icy cold water. But one had to take pity and jump over his own shadow. No matter who it was, he should get this jump as soon as possible.

"Oh God. ...What did I just say?" Howard finally and in an eternity, aware of what he'd said to Gary the other day, whispered, rubbing both hands over his slightly pale face.

Now he felt something of bad, as it had been for a long time. He knew, like the other three guys, that Gary was on his own at fourteen fifteen years, and since then had tried to take the first real and serious step into the gigantic world of music. So far it was always assumed that Gary had lost his parents with a car accident or the similar, but not with something like that. This also explained why their mutual friend had felt somehow excluded from them in the last and before those years, and why he always made a close when the theme of his own family or the personal past arose. This gave Gary a whole new picture, which made it clear why he was so keen on success in the nineties. Gary wanted to prove to his parents that he could live with a long-felt dream with the help of his newfound family. But now that he seemed to have lost everything, he had probably thought he had to lead the life which was intended for him. One that was far away from all his problems and he could forget everything that his life had ever dreamed of and imagined.

"Now I understand, what he meant by the fact that his past would catch up with him again. ...That explains a lot." Jason now understood why Gary was all the time fixed on the success and, incidentally, made sure they knew all of them in the same boat.

After all, they hadn’t once called him the captain. In fact, Gary had always been someone who could be unconditionally looked up. Someone who had not only impressed them with his extraordinary talent and led the world, but one who had been more than a very good friend for each of them. One who also liked to care about their needs and thus came across as a brother, almost like a father figure.

 

But with the current knowledge that Gary had an extremely unpleasant past and tried to leave it behind somehow and give the whole thing something to live, the friends instantly felt that they had never really known him. In hindsight, however, their common and former friend was still the same in a certain way. Except for his appearance and the manner in which he gave himself to his counterpart, Gary had by no means changed in the last few years. He thought and felt the same as before an eternity. Even though they initially had difficulties to recognize him, he was more than clear.

"And I always thought his parents were killed in a car accident or the like." Howard pointed out in a barely intelligible whisper.  
"We had all thought that." Jason was of the same opinion.  
"I had always felt like he hides what from us. But that his own parents had just put him on the street and he died in their eyes must really hurt. ...Even after so many years. ...Only I don’t understand how he gets on that I keep his private luck from him." Mark was able to understand how Gary had to feel in relation to his own family, but not why he was the final one in him Destroyer of his life so far.

It was not for that reason that his friend helped him, when he got an alcohol problem more than ten years ago, to get him on his feet again. This, in fact, was simply too heartfelt, and so Mark also hurt himself that he had hurt him quite clearly and unintentionally. At the same time, he had never lost a single bad word, either a girl or one of his innumerable talents. ...On the whole, Mark had really been more than a good friend to him.

"Gaz’s right. ...We've broken everything. Not him." Howard went straight on the path of self-destruction, trying to get his three friends present somehow.  
"So, I wouldn’t want to see the whole thing so closely, but basically I agree with you that we are not completely innocent. ...We have torn him an unknown and never healed scar, where, with our behavior, we also sprinkled salt in a much too deep wound. Sooner or later he would have run away before us. ...The question is only what has finally triggered it. I mean, before he ran away, we'd been married for a little more than two and a half years, which means that it can not be for us alone." Jason thought Gary would have looked at it with great certainty and behavior, while in the aftermath he gave a very cautious glance to the two younger ones.  
"What are you looking at me like that? I have no idea why he looks at me in the Darth Vader." Mark felt somehow addressed and thus brought up his previous words.  
"But something must have happened before, because otherwise Gary wouldn’t have run away so head over heels." Howard felt rocky the idea that four years ago there had still been something in which Gary saw his escape even more confirmed and thus from the area had disappeared.  
"Talking about head over heels ...I guess we should get this question back and try to find him and before he leaves the country again ...or does something himself!" Jason wanted to no longer deal with this one question and feared by the way, that Gary could do something rash.  
"You seriously believe that Gaz ...could take his life?" Howard finally said that quietly, for which obviously no one was able to make it even over the lips.  
"To be honest, I don’t know what he is going to do, but a feeling tells me that we should do something on the spot and stop searching for him any longer." Jason simply said uneasy about the matter, "And so I would suggest that Mark and I will try our luck in the neighboring places and you Doug will stay better with Rob."  
"What? Why that? I want to help with the search for Gary."  
"Doug. Babe. I can understand you, and I also know that the words you have thrown to Gary's head are now more than extremely sorry, and that you are now looking at him with quite different eyes, but Gary does not. Because, if we should find him and make a speech, I need someone at my side, that doesn’t come so fast to one hundred and eighty as you do."  
"All right. Then I'll stay here and lead Rob. ...But please take care that you will not get a blue eye from Gaz. Since as soon as to you somebody is disfigured your wonderful face I simply to the bull."  
"Don’t worry about that. I think it will not come so far." Jason tried to reassure his spouse that nothing was going to happen in the direction and gave him an intimate kiss.

With these words, Mark and Jason Howard left on Robbie's side with a clear conscience then went on a search for their friend, who had run away again. Even though during the last three years they had not helped the youngest in their midst in his search, they could now revenge.

 

As soon as Mark and Jason were outside the room, the younger one of the two of them suggested that they ask the local hospital staff if they knew Gary in some way, and if so, where they could find him best. Since this idea had something to do and they did not have to turn a big area upside down, the two of them were looking for the next stop, where most doctors, nurses or even the cleaning staff ran around. Once there, their luck was at the very first doctor who crossed their path. But to the question whether he had seen a full-bearded man who made a daring impression, they didn’t get a concrete answer to what they could do. The second person, however, immediately knew who they were talking about and let the guys know that he was something like a hero in this area. Somehow, the described guy obviously had a flair for it, as soon as there was an accident, to be on the spot and thus enter when there was need at men. He also told them, after briefly reporting his latest heroic feat of two days ago, and pulled a certain Robbie Williams with a trucker from a quite demolished car, that he usually stayed in a place called Coral Bay. With this tip, where they were likely to find Gary, Mark and Jason thanked him briefly, and hurriedly left the building as quickly as possible to reach the place at best in record time.

When the two boys were more than finally at the entrance to Coral Bay, they were astonished at Gary's so-called fate, and he had been in the last few years. The place was really small and had to have just around two hundred inhabitants, but it was quite pleasant here. Although this vivid spot, called earth was mainly inhabited by fishing and tourism, it was very easy to hide from an unsightly past. Gary had really found the perfect refuge. What the latter did so, however, the dear long day, only their knowledge escaped. Besides, it was much more important to the two of them at the moment to figure out where the ran away person was currently hiding.

As soon as they had set foot in this place for the very first time, the two boys went straight to the port, where they were sure to find someone who could tell them with great certainty in which house their friend, who had disappeared, was living. Halfway around, they were met by a man who had the same stereotype as a dock worker, and thus had sprung from a picture book, and Mark and Jason seized this chance immediately.

After they had started the first contact and had thus approached him, whether he knew a man who corresponded to Gary's current appearance, the latter nodded only and let the friends know that the two had already gone too far.

"According to your description, you can only mean Sam. He lives in the first house directly at the village entrance."  
„Sam?“ Jason repeated the name apparently changed by Gary and was obviously amazed about the fact that his former friend so by no means more wanted to be called and had got to me nothing to you nothing, simply quite a new name.  
"Yes. Sam Davis. That's what he's called. ...He is a bit strange and doesn’t talk particularly a lot, but he has made himself more than indispensable for the last three and a half years. Sam helps out really always where just need in the man is."  
"That's him. ...Thank you for your help." Jason was convinced that this Sam Davis was actually Gary, and finally thanked him for his support, with a typical British manner.  
"No problem. But if Sam doesn’t be at home, try to stand up there. He is quite frequent there and staring at the distance all the time. But don’t ask me why he does it. ...As I said, Sam is quite strange." The man Mark and Jason finally knew quickly where they could find him as well and then went on without a word of parting his way.

 

To these final words, Mark and Jason looked at each other with a slightly uncomprehending look. As Gary was talking about, they didn’t get rid of the perpetual feeling that they had to take their legs more quickly than before. Alone the name change in Sam Davis, which in their opinion was by no means compatible with Gary, even showed how deeply the whole thing with Gary really went. With a more than unpleasant feeling in the stomach, the boys instantly ran back to where they came from. Arriving at the first house of the village, Jason hammered wildly against the wooden door and demanded loudly from Gary to open it immediately. But nothing happened. Everything remained quiet. ...To be precise, too quiet.

Already for this reason, Jason stepped back a few steps to take some action and open the door, if necessary, with physical violence. In the moment, however, when Mark, for the sake of checking and simplicity, reached for the door latch, and then, surprisingly, gently slipped to the side, Jason was already interrupted, who stormed completely unhindered into a black hole and shortly thereafter with a quite spectacular and unsafe landing Consequently went down.

"Really Jay. Just because Gary doesn’t open the door, you don’t have to go straight to a deep flying orange, where you then also risk running, on a wall or in the case of a door clapping and ending as juice. I'd rather expect from Howard, but not from you." Mark giggled and couldn’t let Jason's involuntary stunts go uncommentally.  
"Very funny. So a saying I would have expected now from Rob, but not from you. This proves that you spend too much time with him. ...Would you please help me get up?" Jason didn’t felt as by no means funny and Mark for the fact that he heped up him.

No sooner did Jason stand on his two feet, saw the two a bit uncomfortably around and had to realize right away that this was more than a very modest hut. Except for the unpleasant stone floor, everything was clad in wood and gave the whole not only a rustic touch, but also a certain cold, which they instantly even felt themselves. Under these circumstances, the feeling grew that one had landed somehow in Gary's head. What really frightened the two friends. If the rest of the dwelling looked exactly the same, he must have felt very badly injured. When they came to the living room, they realized, however, that there was still a carpet here instead of the stone floor. But the white-gray color didn’t seem very inviting, leaving behind a feeling as normal as the previous flooring did.

 

In spite of the fact that they didn't feel any welcome at all, Mark and Jason eventually penetrated the interior until the unequal couple had been in the bedroom for less than a minute and found a sleeping person who showed them completely casually the back.  
Gary.

With hurried steps and loud shouting that this should cease to sleep, one went straight to his side and thereby hopes to get some reaction from him. But what didn’t happen. Not even the smallest, traitorous sign was recognizable. Gary lay completely motionless and seemed really only to sleep. But even if he was only sleeping, wouldn’t he then to have a regular body movement? Since her arrival here had not taken place on silent soles, it was also possible that Gary knew about her presence and, as a small child could just take his breath, to make any imaginable movement possible. For a vague moment, they stood by the side of their mutual friend and watched him as long as they could, until the meaning of it came to him and Jason thus settled on him on the bed.

"Now come on, Gaz. You cannot posthold us on a continuing basis that you make no difference to us. ...We really didn’t want to hurt you. Who knows, if you had even told us a word about your past, our common history might have been quite different. ...Please. Do us the favor and give the whole thing a chance. ...You should definitely know that we haven’t forgotten you in the last four years. You were, are and will always be an important part of our lives!" Jason Gary tried to make a close-hearted statement that she had never really planned it and had never really forgotten him all the time.

But despite the well-meaning and serious words, Gary continued to show no emotion and so Jason put a hand on his left shoulder, so that he could cautiously and miraculously put it on his back. When he had brought him to the said position, Gary's left hand revealed an empty orange jar, which then fell silently to the ground and thus to Mark's feet. After Mark had abolished it with the words, "What is that?", he was immediately asked by Jason, what had been in there.

No sooner had Mark read the bold letters, almost stifled his breath and let Jason, with a rigid look and a whispering voice know, what had been up until recently.

"Sleeping pills!"

Jason's eyes were instantly darkened and as he was chattering in his brain, how many Gary had taken them and what he meant for him in the end, he fell out of the clouds and didn’t want to believe him. Gary couldn’t seriously try to suicide. This is absolutely impossible. Normally, he would never consider something because of his fear of dying, and yet his friend had done it now. Obviously he thought that if he had already taken away everything that he had longed for in his whole life, there was no longer any point in this unrighteous world. Even if his existence had only been in an eternal shadow world over the past few years that didn’t mean that he had to take the life on a further look at his past.

No. Gary's life was by no means ending. …Not so.

So Jason groped quickly for Gary's pulse, checking his breathing as well, until suddenly he himself took a white facial color and promptly prompt Mark to call the emergency doctor: "Oh God! ...Mark, call the emergency doctor. Gaz has no pulse and he breathes no more!"

Visibly shocked that Gary wanted to take his life seriously and so now lay more than motionless in front of him on the bed, Mark froze instantly to a salt column and could see the already clouded and watery look of his really very good friend, not even in the remove the least. Under these circumstances, he also had tremendous difficulties in pursuing Jason's demand in some form.

"Come on, Mark. ...I can’t do this here forever. ...Otherwise he will still leave me here." Mark got to hear Jason at some point as he tried to resuscitate Gary and hopefully back into the realm of the living.


	10. They Don't Need To See You Cry

After a felt eternity, which had passed in the real time but just around the four five minutes, the ambulance ordered by Mark drove more than finally at last and a visibly desperate Jason, which was completely finished, still couldn’t get into the life returned Gary to the care of the paramedics. Without going into the question, since when he already carried out this resuscitation here, the unselfish Briton finally simply went back without a word and left the progression to the professionals. In his opinion, he had done all that was in his power and yet Jason couldn’t do much. With hanging shoulders he stood at Mark's side and watched as he gave his little friend a half-hug, the mute. Although Gary had completely become estranged from them, this rather unforgettable and frightening event took the both more than they admitted themselves. 

"I have something here, but the pulse is pretty weak! ...", the voice of one of the attending paramedics suddenly tore this intolerable tension into two halves and had therefore at first what releasing, however, the follower, let every thinkable up and upcoming hope immediately again collapse in itself: "...His state is extremely unstable and if he is not during the next ten fifteen minutes in the hospital, it will be already too late.“  
Then on this one sentence, everything happened quite fast. After Gary with few handles was laid on a mobile carrying and was brought shortly after in wind haste to the ambulance, it also immediately went in the nearest hospital.

But as neither Jason nor Mark were about to leave Gary's side, the two of them were lucky enough to go with the permission, so they could actually remain in the constant nearness of their mutual friend. During this trip, which lasted just five minutes, and felt like a half-eternity for the two boys, each one of them began to believe that they wouldn’t reach their destination in time. It was really the purest torture, and at some time to be able to overcome it, they instantly escaped to a world where everything was still in order, and hopefully soon afterwards, that Gary was no longer fond of death and that the right-kinked friends had no more to worry about. ...

 

Two days passed. After the blackest world in which Gary had still been till a few seconds and had eked out therefore in an absolute darkness seen never there his existence, was flooded by a white-blue and cold-active light very sudden and was illuminated therefore till the smallest corner, three silhouettes which got closer again slowly indeed always opened before his eyes and in an exceedingly big distance. Even the constant and not sometimes in the beginning the stopping echo which was caused of those and contained only one single word brought the before still invincible distance with a pure-growing and varying voice more and more to the glaze and released with Gary with it immense fear. Panic climbed up. The fact that he was here in a completely different place, as he had planned and wanted it, couldn’t be more obvious. Instead of in a burning world which was also called hell there was Gary, why also always, on the way to get him out of here. …Back in the rather painful, awful and bitter-tasting reality where he didn’t even had the slightest future.

When the three silhouettes were so dangerous close to him that they had a suitable face, which Gary knew only too well for his suffering, he felt shortly after something so like an extremely painful blow in the middle of his face which forced him properly to a position change on which he proceeded presently in the foetus position beloved constantly. Gary also wanted to prevent one like Howard, Jason or Mark from further exasperating his pain and, consequently, spreading too much salt in a never-healed wound. But due to the fact, that he was unjustly tied to his high-waisted bed-lattice with his left wrist and the right was bandaged because of the sprain, he had no choice but to lie on his left side. Because, however, around his left wrist some handcuffs were and he was tied up with it now in unfair manner to the highly sedate bed grid, this position change could be carried out only on the left side. While he took this, he still got of Jason on the fact to hear that this should serve exclusively only for his protection. Shortly after he had pressed one half of his face into the pillow, Gary fled, like already so often also, in a selfcreated and mysterious world. So no one could follow him, and so he stared, with a dead look, into the eternal emptiness. 

 

The sight Gary offered his so-called friends with was anything but easy and unpleasant for the boys. That he was going to kill himself seriously, although he had a tremendous fear before dying, made they realize how much it had to have hurt Gary that they had taken from him at least more than two years away slowly this what was important to this in the life. To have a family with whom he just wanted to make music together. Just only the one point, that they should have brought Gary to their own private happiness, too, was still hidden from them and that was something especially Mark made ready. As he had already mentioned, he had never stretched a girl to his friend.Never. For it their tastes of the female gender were simply too different. Apart from that, he also knew there was someone who was more than just fond of Gary. But whether he could be interested in this one person was rather doubtful. 

"Hey. Come on, Gaz. You cannot posthold us on everlasting that you make no difference to us. We really didn’t want to hurt you ...or cause a short-circuit reaction. So please, don’t do this to us, and above all, to yourself. You don’t know it, but we had had during the last two days really the purest fear of death around you. Only because of you we were made ourselves the biggest worries generally. Believe me none of us ever wanted you to sneak quietly and secretly out of this and our little common world." Jason finally went to the attempt after he had sat down at Gary on the bed and told him that they certainly didn’t want him to fall into a deep depression and not want to lose.

However, the fact that this gave on it no reaction of itself was there more than predictable. Not even the slightest sound came over his lips. Gary didn’t want to talk at the moment and preferred to move back into a dreamy fantasy, no one could really blame him. He needed time to make sure that his suicide attempt had failes pitifully. The fact, that he was among the living and beeing a part of a painfully world again. Well, he didn’t have to talk. It was enough that he just listend to them ...Provided, that Gary lent them generally an ear.

With the hope that he was still in the here and now purely acoustic, Howard finally tried his luck shortly afterwards and brought his official excuse by the way: "Gaz. Buddy ...Listen, none of us wanted to discriminate against you in any way. Definitely not. Even though, in the last few years, I mean, of course, before you turned your back and decided to go into exile, your life was obviously more than thoroughly mischievous, you should definitely know that you not even in the approach no matter. Really not. ...I had only thought that you would understand my decision that I would withdraw from the music only for a couple of years to form my own small family. ...So I have probably poured you something like a barrel of acid in a never healed wound. If we had known that you are fighting with a very painful past and is still burdening you today, and I can understand why you never told us, then everything would have come quite differently. ...So now I am truly sincerely sorry what I told you a few days ago. I ...I couldn’t have guessed that you take my words so dear to you and you... "

After Howard had done his best to fight with an apology, he didn’t feel much better. What was probably due to the fact that he could not say with absolute certainty whether Gary had heard his words at all. With this insecurity, he ended up trapping himself into an abyss of emptiness, where he lost himself, and the last sentence thus remained unspoken. It was not until Howard knew how someone was reaching for his hand, that a feeling of warmth came to his mind, that the feeling of life came back and looked more than grateful to the eye. As he had hoped, he was none other than his over-all and heart-loving spouse Jason. If he did not, then Howard would surely feel like a soulless marionette. ...So about as Gary had felt at the time and over all the years.

Well, probably less than more.

 

Shortly afterwards Mark, although he felt somewhat uncomfortable, came to Gary's side and let know him, while he laid the right hand on his shoulder carefully and softly to his friend that he never wanted this to injured ones. However, he should have done this, was still mysterious to small Mark. Just because, he couldn’t do anything to a fly ...and certainly not, one of his best friends at all.

"Gaz? ...Whatever I've ever done to you, I feel more than extremely sorry and you have to believe that I really didn’t want that. ...And even though I don’t even know what it is. ...Please, Gary. Between us both were always really well and never had a serious fight, so how can it please be that I may have discriminated against you and in the way stand in the way, to find even the one person with whom you want to spend your remaining life? ...And now honestly, you are and will be one of the few people who belong to my life and I don’t want to lose in the least. So, please. Give us the chance to show you that we are more than one hundred percent serious. ...You lie to us to all and without every exception and for all times, very much with the heart.“ Mark fought for the fact that Gary might not give up their friendship so simply and proceeded therefore again in their middle.

But as it was with Jason and Howard, Mark could not have any visible success. Obvious Gary had filed his soul already for all eternity and had sold to the highest bidder. Now finally they had lost him. To see him like this was much more difficult to handle, as if he had succeeded in his suicide attempt. If now Gary was just dead, they would still have made to themselves the worst reproaches, but for it one thereby owned, at least, the possibility to be able to say goodbye to him by birth and properly. But seeing Gary here before them and in his personal black hole only vegetated, the boys got themselves an embarrassment, which threatened to throw them into an abyssed depression.

„I believe it would be probably better if we leave Gaz for the moment for for a while alone.“ Jason suggested after a surely long and tantalising minute with a voice which sounded like a second-class saw and tore the intolerable silence in more than only two halves.

Because Howard and Mark agreed with it, as a result they nodded to him silently synchronically and while the both old people already proceeded in the direction of Robbie, who had given all along no tone of himself and lay on the other side of the room in his own bed, Mark Gary still pressed briefly and a little bit timidly small kiss his temple. However, hardly he had turned towards this the back, stole out of Garys to right eye already quietly and secretly a single tear which rolled about his pale working cheek and disappeared after not sometimes five seconds in the depths of a neglected full beard I never want to see you again there. So the three boys, in a certain and happy way, were spared a more than memorable and emotional sight. 

The rest of the day, at least to them sometime by a nurse were asked to go, three boys spent side in Robbies and spoke primarily of how they could get to win back Garys trust again. But the ideas that came up were not exactly the truth, so one, like Howard, Jason and Mark, had to leave the building because of the knotted night's rest at the end of the day. What Robbie didn’t even want his friends to leave him alone with Gary. In the last two nights, when his little friend was still in a coma at this time, he hadn’t had any great problems with it. But now that Gary was awake, he was tormented with certain doubts, whether it was a good idea to have him here with him, and only to keep a watchful eye on him, and not to put him on any Thoughts came to be able to do something rash. ...Even if Gary with handcuffs to the bed grid was tied up. His fear was more that he could say something in his sleep, and Gary had somehow unsettled the spoken words in relation to his own person. Okay. In his eyes he was, like the other boys also, below by and felt from him accordingly already more anything but disappointed, but to a certain point he was afraid that Gary might suddenly and unexpectedly begin to cry. However, so far no one from the boys ever was perceptibly perceived, they had never seen him under tears or heard even times times sobbing. No. This was something that Robbie wanted to see by no means.

 

So the hours passed, and somewhere in the middle of the night, Robbie was actually awakened by some unpleasant noises that came more than clearly from the other end of the room. Although they remained constant and besides, not sometimes in the least a certain intensity in volume crossed, Robbie knew all too well that it was the sort of noise that he had not even wanted to hear in the beginning ...and certainly not from his Little friend named Gary, who was obviously crying.

While he was sobbing quietly, still being tied to the bed by his so-called friends, Robbie got the idea that Gary had to be more than just a slap in the face. Basically, they were only trying to tell him, or show that they only wanted to protect him from himself. Although the whole thing had a purely friendly background, Gary could feel even more discriminated than he already did. If you look at the picture from this point of view, however, the friends were just on the best way there to lose Gary now finally. Because let’s be honest, with this chain action they still built up their chance that Gary gave them sometime again his trust und turned. If to boys Gary lay really still with the heart and wanted to lose him at any price, it would be very strong there to recommend, to take from him the handcuffs immediately again.


	11. Someone Said The Truth Will Out

Why?

Why did it hurt him so badly that he wanted to be dead rather than keep it in mind that he still had nothing at all in this world and that his life had not been worth a penny in years? Who would ever want to continue living under these circumstances at all? Gary wasn’t at all, and he did not care whether he had a gigantic fear before dying or not. This deep hole of eternal damnation, which now filled him with his abundantly wounded soul, once and for all made his own death, drove him into a final emptiness which a human being had never before experienced. An emptiness that even rose to the head and caused dizzying thoughts, which could then lead to an inevitable, short-circuit reaction. Why did it finally come ...and not just once.

At first, he ran head over heels, and after his past had even followed him to Australia, he had probably seen no other possibilities than to take his own life. But what was prevented by two of his "oh so good" and former friends. Why did they have to bring him back to life? Why? For him, it was simply incomprehensible what they wanted from him. Yet no one had a reason to look for a gutted wreck that had been slaughtered or to mourn afterwards. From his point of view, he wasn’t even worth a single tear. For who wanted him already? While he had already blessed the temporal for two specific people and was considered dead, he was now also for one such as Howard and Jason. So there remained only Mark and Robbie left, where the two weren’t exactly better. After Howard and Jason had already demonstrated it to them, two younger lived their small life by no means differently and explained with the biggest security, a rather successful solo career and they dusted them or other golden or silver record.

God. Why was he really just doing it himself? Just the thought that Mark and Robbie really had everything he had ever dreamed of, destroyed his cold and unfeeling heart of glass more than finally in the thousands of shards. While there was a gigantic cul-de-sac in his interior, causing him numerous and quite painful injuries, the tears grew more and more hot, so he began to cry softly. 

 

After half an eternity, where Gary had already felt sickened by his tears and was no longer able to squeeze them, he could feel somewhere in his immediate vicinity, which was very familiar to him. Whenever a certain person sneaked at his side, he was always seized by the one and the same feeling that brought him to the fore and the moment. In hindsight, however, he had to stand still, that he had never experienced this feeling so intensively. Perhaps it was only because he was trying to forget the person behind him, as if he had been desperate for four years. Why was he here at all? Although it was said him, he could not understand the reason sometimes in the least. Who proceeded then quite voluntarily on the search for him? In his opinion, there was no one. In addition, he had even had to say a few days ago that no one turned around after him and was therefore not worth a single thought to continue to deal with him. But why did he recall this event? What had Gary got? He could not seriously punish himself, just because a serious mistake had ensued. ...Gary shouldn’t have pulled the injured Robbie out of his scrap vehicle.

When, on his back, his right hand, where the letters L-O-V-E had been tattooed on his fingers, placed him on his shoulder and placed a small kiss on his temple, Gary soon afterwards got problems with his breathing which stoked him a certain longing more and more uncommonly. A longing, which then screamed finally wanted to come to rest. Somehow, the whole thing had even here of an ever-lasting forest fires, where no one could even begin to extinguish this gigantic fire and thus freed Gary from his burning prison. But hardly had Gary had noticed Robbie's gentle lips on his temple. He was purely emotionally opposed to a monstrous conflagration and burned him unhindered invisible scars. In his mind, the memory came back to him when he had done it last. But what was now around the eleven years.

God. How much he missed the good old days. To make music together with his four guys, to travel around the world and to raise the hearts of the fans.

Gary, however, knew only too well that there was nothing in this life. The time of Take That was long gone. Although, last time, at least ten years had elapsed, when they had dared to go four on a comeback. So what stood in the way? ...Considering the fact that he couldn’t even be in a room with the fours, he felt a certain anxiety and self-doubt which made him a danger to itself and his immediate surroundings. Now. The existence of the one-time pop star named Gary Barlow had not existed for an eternity. He was only a hardly worth mentioning figure, waiting quietly and secretly at the other end of the world for his demise. So, his whole story had been the purest farce. ...From the beginning to the end.

 

In the extended time, where Robbie had now settled down to his little friend on the bed and just wanted to keep him company, Gary's aggravated breathing still proved quite stubborn and didn’t give him the slightest chance even once to be able to breathe through. With the slowly rising fear that he was soon suffering a possible respite, Gary wanted more and more that the younger one would finally leave his side and leave him alone forever. Because by his immediate proximity to him, he didn’t get rid of the feelings that this just wanted to torment him.

Why did he do that again? He had never lost a bad word against Robbie. Not even at the time when he had been knocked down by him for several years and presented in public as a joke. Although the circumstances at the time were a little different than today, there was not much difference. The reason why Gary was particularly hurt by him was still the same. Beside all the many lies and false promises Robbie had given him over time, and without exception, there was one more thing that hurt him. Something, that wouldn’t even change in hundreds of years. There was something between them that always stood in the way and that was just as painful as to have died in their eyes for certain and close people.

"G... Get Out!" Gary found somewhere between two wine pattings and when he got a little bit of air at least, the power around Robbie to clarify that he should disappear.  
"Gaz. I ...I... never wanted to hurt you. ...You must believe me." Robbie had obvious difficulties with letting Gary know in a small voice that he didn’t want to hurt him in any way.

No. Certainly not. Even that which had occurred twenty years ago between the two and thus lay behind them like an eternal shadow, he had never really wanted. For ever since the beginning of their common history, Gary had a very special place in his heart, and he had always looked after him, like a legendary and extremely valuable treasure, with argus eyes. Both then and now. Only when Robbie felt that Gary had concentrated solely on the success and was like an egoist by the way, the desire to leave the band was loud. But when he had been seriously trying to talk about it, he simply said that he was not allowed to take that into account, and not even at the time when they had finally reached the top. Whereupon Robbie felt himself more than disappointed by him, beginning the provisional downfall of Take That.

With the present knowledge, however, why Gary was so keen on success and not even wanting to let him go, he looked at his little friend with quite different eyes and could quite understand why he felt betrayed by him and injured. He himself would not have behaved otherwise. But if their roles had been reversed, Robbie wouldn’t have survived the ensuing time after the band's life and the unsuccessful Soloveruch, as it once was at Gary. ...And so he wondered how he had managed to survive the said time alive.

"Please Gaz. ...Or do I have to call you now with Sam? I ...I know I've never really been a good friend for you and so I'm really more than insane and sincerely sorry. Honestly. ...You... you belong to my life. Besides Mark, I don’t want to lose you at any price in the world, and I do not just say that. Our friendship is important to me more than anything else. ...What do you think I'm here for? Just for your sake. I've spent every single second of my life searching for you for the past four years. ...I... I cann’t imagine my life without you anymore!"

But as Gary didn’t even have a small suspicious impulse on his very desperate attempt, Robbie lost his patience and pushed him inexorably on the edge of a nervous and pitch-black abyss, where he could forget any hope. It had no purpose. Although Gary had given him the two little words, "Get out!", this didn’t soften and showed Robbie the cold shoulder.

"Then just not." Robbie gave a lot of kinky speech and went back on his two legs.

Visibly struck, Robbie crept slowly and with slow steps back to the side of the room and sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh. It was more than sad that Gary gave the friendship to him and the boys, not even the slightest chance. In addition, all that he had ever wanted in his own life had turned away from him for all time. To accept the loss of a life-loving friend was already difficult enough, but when he showed himself as his great love, it hurt even more.

Yes. He loved Gary about everything and that since they knew each other.

But that his secret love could have the same feelings for him, he doubted strongly. Why should he? After all, he had once humiliated and massacred him once and for all years. Back then, in the nineties, after turning his back on Take That, he couldn’t help but omit all his disappointments, frustration, and the anger of his former bandmates, of course, to Mark. However, Gary got the most out of it. Although the two had already buried the proverbial hatchet long ago, this one thing would somehow stand in all eternity between them. It was therefore impossible for Gary to feel exactly the same as he did for him.

 

While his giddy gaze glided forward and thus into the absolute emptiness, Gary's sobs still penetrated to him, leaving in his ears such a roughly and rather painful echo, whereupon he himself stood on the other side, quietly and secretly the one or other tears. He was about to go back to bed, when something opened up in his dark corner of his eye and he got a thought that didn’t let him go. It was his cell phone. Had Gary ever seen the videotape that they had made for him four years ago, and then went around the world? Somehow he felt that Gary wasn’t even aware of the existence of the video. If this was the case, he could show him that they were all still standing as a closed unit behind him and were only thinking about his well-being and whereabouts. That they would gladly take him back to their midst. 

Under severe conditions, Robbie grabbed his mobile phone instantly, straightened again, groaning slightly, and after he had called the video, he looked up again and immediately to the side of his friend. Shortly after giving Gary another visit to his side, and then settling down on the bed, Robbie was more than desperate to take his last chance and gave him a little deal, which he also wanted to keep true. ...God’s willing.

"Ga ... Sam?"  
"Ge ...Get Out!"  
"Sam. ...Sammy. Please. ...It’s really important to me. I ...I'd like to show you something, and I promise you that I'll release you from the handcuffs and leave ...forever out of your life." Robbie gave himself the greatest effort to make his right shaking voice but he failed and gave Gary know that to do whatever he asked of him, "If that's what you want from me ...then I'll do it. You just have to tell me. I would really do everything for you, even if I had to give my life for it."

No sooner had Robbie managed to get the serious words to his lips, he couldn’t even believe that he actually gave Gary the offer to kill himself if his little friend actually wanted him. In the end, however, he would really consider it sooner or later. For without Gary, his entire world would be completely colorless and everything would have no meaning. This alone had made his life worth living. ...Without him, he would be an absolute nothing.

When Robbie had finally noticed a slight nod from his little buddy, he held him so his mobile phone so already so that they could both pursue this now four years old video together. The attention of the younger was much more focused on Gary's reaction than on the content of the video. In the end, where Robbie was known to be the last to speak and thus directed to Gary, the latter tried to recognize some reaction despite the low light conditions. But Robbie didn’t have to wait long. After Mark had asked Gary to come home again and thus spread the word to his two year younger friend, Gary instantly fell silent and closed his eyes as hard as he could. Apparently, for any reason, the end of the video couldn’t pursue further. Even the subsequent picture, where Gary's tears multiplied and thus became thicker, Robbie was not spared any time, and so he got the unsightly feeling that it was a mistake to show him this video at all. He had expected now all possible reactions, but by no means with something like that. It was really frustrating and crushing at the same time. So that at least Gary could feel a little better, he freed him from his fetters, as promised. 

No sooner was Gary again a free man, he was already completely overwhelmed by all his emotions and thus suffered, before Robbie's eyes, the final collapse. For an eternity that was felt, the unprecedented struggle followed with his dammed up tears, which he had evidently saved up to this day. Tears that he had never shed, and where every one of them was telling their own little and darkest chapter of his life. From a past which Gary kept up to date with the past, and was concerned with the present with a very painful connection, which he never quite got rid of and which influenced his future decisively. His whole life consisted solely of a gigantic black hole, and while this eternal darkness tried to tear it apart, a formless voice also appealed to Gary that no one was interested in his true feelings. Apparently somebody wanted to let Gary believe he was completely alone ...and so he had felt for more than thirty years.

From somewhere he had once heard the saying, "live together - die alone", and had to say from his point of view that this was not for him. Indeed, at the age of ten, Gary was practically alone. In a time when he had a dream and was thus decisively strengthened.

 

After a little bit more than one hour, where purely seemingly seen the worst would to have been over, found till recently completely turned itself and extremely bad-feeling Robbie the way back in the reality and laid to his small friend carefully a hand on his still slightly shaking shoulder. If he had known that he could end the final collapse with the video at Gary, Robbie would have thought differently and not. This was something he had not really intended. Gary now had to see this way, left in his heart not only a gigantic emptiness, but also a quite unbearable pain that he had never felt so before.

"I’m ...I'm really very sorry. I ...I... I didn’t want to put you in an unpleasant situation. If I can do anything for you, tell me. I will follow it immediately. ...Please Sam." Robbie wanted to let him know that he was sorry about everything and would bring all the shit on the stage without much thought.  
"Stop calling me like that. You have from nothing a notion. From me, you can let yourself be pushed down on the next cliff, or snatch this miserable and small bastard who now has everything in his life and with whom you are now engaged, and return to England, where you both go to your life will be happy together! ...Just get out of here!" Gary suddenly shouted at him as soon as he could get out of his life and gave him two alternatives as a farewell gift, as he would rather be.

After the last five words of Robby had been gagged by Gary, the older man instantly took a break and took flight from him immediately. While his eyes were looking gazing in the direction of the door and Gary looked after him, he slowly realized what his little friend had been doing for years. As it looked, he was only envious of Mark. Among the five, Mark was now the only one who still had an intact family and thus apparently possessed everything that Gary always promised of his life. With the current knowledge that Gary was regarded as dead and thrown to the streets by his own parents, it was understandable for Robbie that he was looking for the actual and new family in his friends, as he would have liked it to be. Also Gary apparently wished nothing more ardently to have somebody to his side which meant it also with him seriously and loved unconditionally. All the many women he had already brought behind himself were, after all, only after his money or, in fact, his not bad-looking body.

Wait a minute, Gary had spoken not exactly still of the fact that this looked at him as the fiancée of Mark? That was a perfect nonsense. Okay. He loved Mark, but not more than the world's best brother, whom he could ever wish for. In his eyes, Gary will always be the only one with whom he would love to share his life and grow old. Should that mean by the way ...that Gary might have the same feeling as himself?


	12. When I’m Down There On My Knees You Give Me Something

The hours passed and after the sun had already taken her majestic place on the eastern horizon for a very long time, and the glowing blue sky with her warm rays shone, it was a very beautiful day, as is so often the case, over the continent of Australia. Through a light and pleasant breeze, which came from the Indian Ocean, the further life down here was quite peaceful and should give you the feeling of inner peace. It was a rest from which one could draw new strength so as to ensure that one's existence on this earth was far from over and gave itself a second chance. While for most people this one day was like everyone else, it should be memorable for two very specific people and their lives change from the ground.

At this early morning, when most Australians were already familiar with their everyday life, Howard, Jason, and Mark wanted to see for their two friends whether they had survived the last night. Above all, Gary. For him, it must have been extremely hard since he had to share the room with Robbie and on the other hand, Gary was bound by themselves to the bed. With the hope that in the night between the two nothing memorable had emerged and thus everything had been quiet, the three finally sought their common sick room on. When they opened the door, all looks immediately fell on a certain and absolutely orphan bed, where a fortified handcuff hung down silently on the high-pitched bed. However, from the matching person who was tied up before still in those every trace was missing.

"What the hell? ...I just don’t believe it. Gary has already disappeared. How could he free himself from the handcuffs at all? ...What in God's name is only in him?" Jason didn’t understand the world anymore, as Gary could free himself from his fetters, and had once again sought out the vastness.  
"I bet, Rob has freed him. ...Because he has disappeared, too." Mark immediately made his assumption openly and pointed out that Robbie also lacked any trace.

But as Jason was still discussing the empty bed in front of him and the eternal question of why, Jason put a half-turn on Mark's words and turned in the opposite direction, where more than one person actually was missed. Now, Jason and his Latin were now completely at the end. He could understand why Gary was hiding at the other end of the world from a quite unhappy past, but he still lacked the understanding of his escape from his own and longtime friends. So Jason also wondered how Gary came only to this goddamn idea that he felt excluded from them. That had never been in her sense. Not even in thousands of years. But the longer Jason thought about it, the greater his fear that Gary could make another suicide attempt and Robbie could unintentionally pull in.

No. So far it might not come only at all. They had to find the both right away and this still passed what bad before. …

 

*** About 2 hours before ***

After Gary ran over and burst out of the room, Robbie could look after his little friend only copiously, until suddenly, in a fraction of a second, the enlightened realization came to him and stuck him at his heels instantly. But because of his broken arm and the bruised ribs, it proved to be a difficult task to stay with Gary at all, and he also witnessed the pain that left him breathless within a very short time. The only thing that Robbie was driving forward was the hope that Gary wouldn’t take this tempo for a long time, and would eventually buckle. Actually, Robbie was not exactly delicate to the physical pain, but for someone like Gary or Mark, he would definitely accept every conceivable pain and go beyond himself. Of course there was nothing against Howard and Jason, but these two were really the only ones in his world, whom he loved unconditionally and idolatrously. While Mark was his best friend, he loved Gary more than his own life.

When they had been able to get some miles behind them, and Robbie was fighting for every step, Gary suddenly stopped on a coastal road, and just before a corner. Looking from this distance, Robbie felt like he had no strength to go on, but Gary had chosen a rather unfavorable place to breathe again. After Robbie had slightly kneeled and supported himself with his right hand on his leg, he tried to ignore all the pain that tormented his body by means of a gigantic tsunami, and hoped by the way to get back to air as soon as possible. No sooner had an estimated twenty, thirty seconds elapsed, Robbie heard shortly afterwards the sound of a huge truck, which just thundered somewhere down the road and thus always came dangerously closer. In the one moment, when he gave his little friend another, and at the same time because of the coming danger, a slightly anxious glance, he had to look with horror, as he suddenly spread out his arms and waited for the redemption that had left him from all his whole tortures more than at last.

No. No. This could not be true now. Gary couldn’t do this to him ...and then also before his eyes.

 

As Robbie didn’t want to see the imminent and unavoidable disaster, he lowered his head and narrowed his eyes as hard as he could. But then he was captured by another giant wave, but this time he was just adrenaline and ran to Gary without thinking much about what he was doing. As Robbies' whole intellect broadened completely from one second to the next and prepared him for the most dreadful picture of his life, he was then led by a certain deep, pumpended something in his chest, which was also called the heart to prevent this inconvenient scenario. Among the last power reserves that Robbie could muster, he suddenly ran to Gary like a madman and tried to get him off the road. When he was at his side and the truck to them was only an extremely dangerous distance around the ten or twelve meters, Robbie grabbed with his healthy arm under his friend's, and really pushed him in the very last second and with all his strength, which he could mobilize for this one daring moment, from the deadly danger zone. With the droning and typical sounding horns of a truck in the ears, the subsequent hard impact didn’t take long to come, and the two engulfed ones rolled down a small slope in the direct connection, where they came to a standstill together and lying on top of each other in the sand.

Since Robbie had his grief about Gary about himself and this took him any air to breathe, he began to jerk to air in the shortest possible time and tried to convey to Gary under no less painful pain that he should quickly hurry down from him.

"Ahh. ...G... Gaz. …Please. Go down from me. …Fast."  
"You fucking asshole. Why did you do that?" Robbie heard of an extremely desperate Gary, before he ever did so.

After Gary had more than finally pity him and relieved his already damaged ribs, Robbie could breathe somewhat more liberally, but the pain in his chest persisted persistently. It felt like an everlasting forest fire which had got out of control and raged in his inside unrestrained further. In the end, however, he preferred the physical pain rather than having to watch, like his very best friend or love, throw himself in front of a truck and thereby take his life. No.

...And even if it were a repeat, he would definitely do it again.

Robbie had barely survived the worst, so he slowly opened his eyes and his pained gaze glided over to Gary, where he watched as his little friend tried to get his feet back. At the moment, however, when the latter had actually fought a lightly shaky booth and was about to take the first step, but to run away, Robbie Gary immediately and earnestly begged with an exceedingly desperate voice to stay here and at least for an ear for sixty seconds.

"No. ...Gary. …Wait. Please. Give me at least ...a minute."

But instead of Robbie's request, Gary was more and more distant, trying to keep him at a distance. But after leaving the ten or eleven meters, the former singer suddenly stopped and fell to his knees within a few seconds, where Gary finally took a persistent position, making an impression to outsiders that he was now finally arrived at the end. That he now had no strength to run farther. When Robbie noticed this and came to the same conclusion that it was indeed so, he could also fight the fight to get back on its feet. As soon as he emerged from the fight as the winner, the former entertainer immediately brought the distance between him to melting.

 

On Gary's side, but there was a lot more behind him, Robbie carefully placed his right hand on his trembling shoulder, exerting slight pressure to signal to him that he was his old Gary and nothing more than anything else in the world. From the very first day since he had disappeared, he had already missed him as hell. Robbie needed Gary in his orbit. As he looked at himself as the Earth, the person in front of him was the surviving moon, who had to circle him all the time, giving the necessary impetus, so that his own orbit would not be off the right path.

"Gaz. I ...I'm sorry, but I ...had to do it. You ...you can not seriously expect me to stand idly like one of my best friends and whom I love to kill above all else." Robbie Gary somehow stuttered and shuddered with the flower that he loved him.

But with an incessant and louder sob, Gary did not even react to it, and gave Robbie a rather uncomfortable feeling, which drove him down even further, so he left it in the background. However, he also knew that he could not hide forever behind his little friend. Sooner or later, Robbie had to fit in with his fate and gaze in the eye. Visually tense and with a heavy heart, he finally sought the inevitable eye contact. When Robbie was standing in front of Gary, looking down at a very desperate and crying something, he had to stand very much to a sorrow that the following could be more than complicated. Because he had always had his problems with keeping any kind of emotions to under control anyhow and by the way in expressive words. With the current and heartfelt desire to be a little more like Jason, Robbie took the exact same position as Gary was, and pulled him into a one-armed, comforting and intimate embrace.


	13. What A Shame We Never Listened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. The last chapter. At this point I thank you for reading. I hope you liked this story. But please don't criticize it because of my English, but more about the story itself. Because I really put my heart and soul into every fanfiction. I woud love to read, what you are thinking about it.

After half an eternity where the earth had to have walked within three quarters of an hour already to the felt hundredth times around the sun, was Gary still in an absolute and painful emptiness which wanted to allow to overthrow some demanded and quite apparently in the death from him. While his whole life, which in a certain sense was already comparable from the beginning with a giant black hole, threatened him now and now more than definitively to banish his time once and for all into the eternal and dark shadows of this world. Where the devil lived and waited for him longingly. That he came to be the prince of the burning underworld, as well as of his like the lost souls, was as safe for Gary as the Amen in the church. Since completely somewhere else there he would not come guaranteed.

With this perpetual and icy feeling of rejection, which Gary had already known for over thirty-five years as his constant companion, and always placing him really big boulders, he began to tremble after a good while despite the warm temperatures around him and tried to escape this imaginary cold somehow, by embracing himself in a half-protective embrace. In a one, that he was already in. At first, Gary wanted to push Robbie away, but his warmth was just too good. Besides, Robbie simply owned quite a special and more than pleasant kind of the warmth which he best wanted to feel his whole life long. Thus it also hurt him more than all other and tremendously that he was not that for which Robbie gave up himself and gave therefore unconditionally his other and future life. It was someone whom he himself knew well and even once as his own brother. Okay. Gary knew about the very special connection between Robbie and ...Mark, but that the two of them one day so far went to each other to want to marry each other, hurt him but more than anything else. Although that his own parents had put him then simply thus and on account of his dream on the street and since denied his existence was quite painful enough, but that just two his very best friends, soon and quite obviously will enter alliance of the life and he felt for one of them more than friendship, tore be already anyway broken heart around next time in several halves and left therefore even more immense pain back with which Gary couldn’t simply handle.

Just because of his immortal love for Robbie, though he had begrudged him from the very first moment, made the whole thing even more complicated and gave to Gary the intolerable feeling that this would also reject him if he knew around his feelings for him. Since as well as he tilts him, if it could also happen absolutely. After all, Robbie was Robbie and because of her common and rather turbulent history, his emotional world looked quite different to him ... and besides, there was still one like Mark. With the Robbie had already understood from the beginning well and swam accordingly on the same wavelength. The whole years, both younger had been just the only ones who had never lost themselves really out of sight. Even after their separation at the time. The friendship between the two, although today it was far more obvious, was indeed something special, and that's exactly why Gary couldn’t fight it against. Why should he? Especially since he knew only too well that Robbie could not even the same feelings for him in thousands of years, as he did it ...No. It was completely pointless.

Actually, he could have turned to Howard and Jason, too, but with their wedding, this whole drama began only really at first. Because of the lack of invitation and the subsequent feeling of a new refusal against him, Gary had somehow, for whatever reason, moved back to his place of birth, where after many years he wanted to pay a visit to his parents and show them, what had become meanwhile from him. But the end of the song was that they had not even recognized Gary and had denied the existence of a possible son and denied with an icy cold. From then on, the inner emptiness of rejection, loneliness, and that of lostness grew slowly but surely steadily to a monstrous greatness, until he saw no other choice for himself, than to rethink his whole life and give it up to the end. ...To go to the other end of the world, where he could leave everything behind him and find no one.

 

But now, after four years where Gary had actually had time to settle down with his past and somehow complete, his former friends suddenly appeared so easily and making the things worse than before was. However, their only presence for Gary was like a barrel full of acid, which instantly and from the first moment poured over his never-healed wounds, where the pain was not long in coming and triggered a gigantic avalanche, the last End to a final collapse. Basically one could have seen it coming everything anyhow, but Gary had recovered at the current hour and himself in Robbie's arms, but he was more than unimaginable. It was true that Gary had always wanted to be in a right-wing embrace with the younger, but the circumstances were more positive.

As Gary was already sitting half-seated and lying, he was pulled by Robbie a little bit closer to these, until he suddenly felt his lips on his backside of his head, and then, in direct connection to the words, "Please. ...You ...you cannot do this to me. I ...I need you in my life. I love you!", whispered.

When Gary interrogated these three little words, which meant the world, his heart made a small joy jump and even set off for a beat, but in the next second, when he realized that Robbie had not even meant it seriously, the bitter reality brought him back immediately. How could Robbie say the words, even though he loved another one and was more than happy with him? After Gary had felt terribly disappointed and injured by him for decades, suddenly an irresistible rage arose, which he didn’t even want to miss out on Robbie and admitted it. 

"Save your words, you miserable and arrogant shit guy." Gary didn’t want to hear of it, and as he tried to push Robbie away, he let him know, with a crooked and a very upbeat voice, how he was in this whole story felt, "Why couldn’t you just stay with your oh so beloved Mark in England and finally leave me alone? Do you ever know what you are doing to me alone with your presence? ...Ever since you came here, you've made everything worse. You destroyed everything that was important to me in my life. Including what I'm trying to rebuild. It was always just from you. First you had to leave the band, spread lies about me and set as a joke figure. When you had returned then after fifteen years to Take That again, you could not leave after the _Progress-Tour_ the band with all your empty and broken promises next time fast enough. Besides, you wanted to completely destroy me through all the times. That was what you always wanted, wasn’t it? ...My congratulations, you finally made it ...and I never lost a bad word about you. Never. I just couldn’t because I loved you from the beginning with all my heart and without any exception! I always wanted only you. …But, you know what? Now this is over. I'm with you once and for all through! ...Will be happy with Mark and live your life, as Howard and Jason had always shown to me."

No sooner had Gary Robbie confessed that he wasn’t entirely innocent in his personal drama and that he loved him up to the present day about everything, he began a more than desperate attempt to come on his two feet to run away once again before all his problems and the past. By pushing Robbie, he could easily fight back to his knees, but to go to a standing position was a clearly difficult undertaking. For a brief and daring moment he managed to take a rather wobbly stand. But this was so unsafe, that Gary immediately went to the ground and landed with the butt rudely in the sand. After Gary had laid a disagreeable landing, and now sat on his four letters, he suddenly realized that the end was. He just couldn’t. His body did not produce any of the movements that he required. It was over.

With the instant feeling of absolute helplessness and lack of strength, as well as you to the inner conflict, Gary fell to the ground, but he never really arrived. Before he hit his upper body, Gary was suddenly caught by a strong arm, which immediately drew him back into a half-hug. Consequently on account of the missing warmth, an internal icy cold on also came down to him and let feel this thereby only surely even more than lonely and lost than he already did it in anyway. 

 

While Gary's clouded and empty gaze was directed to the horizon, where the sun had now developed into a respectable booth, he finally heard Robbie, after a feeling of eternity, that he was extremely sorry for him, and that he never did it really wanted. Definitely not. He only wanted to always help Gary with his plans, in order to get his attention and to win his respect for himself. No more. The fact that Gary had not even seen during all years that he would hold him for what completely special, had been quite painful anyhow. Because of this fact, Robbie couldn’t and would not let him go so easily, to steal from him at first a small kiss and of course not forget to confess to him his absolutely serious and one hundred percent love. ...But that what wasn’t so easy.

First there was a misunderstanding, which he was supposed to quickly clear out of the way, and secondly, Robbie wasn’t a friend of the big words. Besides, he transcribed these words into the written, and then sung them out. With this thought, he had the idea to do it also and thus the perfect song occurred to him immediately for it which he could use. A song, which he had written personally himself and where it was in the second verse then about how his true feelings looked real to Gary.

„ _And outside forces didn't make it easy / So I thought I'd go before you leave me / Self-preservation was no explanation for anything / But the truth is more than we'll ever comprehend / I'm just starting to understand, my friend / All of that distance, 'cause I fell in love with the enemy - This is all that matters now / And that was all that happened anyhow / You can look back but don't stare / Maybe I can love you out of there - And when I went away what I forgot to say / Was all I had to say: …Eight letters, three words, one meaning._ “, Robbie finally started singing softly to this one song, _Eight Letters_ , and then added, in the usual voice, "I love you, Gaz! For real. More than anything else. What do you think I am here at all? Only because of you. …Only because of you, I have proceeded on a many years' and not quite safe search. Only because of you, I have given up everything because I wanted to find again you again. Only becauce of you, I have broken even my left arm. As you can see, I'd really do anything for you. ...You are the love of my life and I need you now in my cosmos. Without you, I would be nothing. Please Gaz. I love you idolatrously and that since I know you. ...And that ...with Mark. ..How do you get the idea that I could be with him? First, I love him, yes, but not more than a brother and Mark is now engaged. He is really more than happy with his Sophie and falls in love with her every day. She is his absolute love. ...Just as you are mine. Come on, Gaz. Don’t do this to me now. Give it a chance. ...All I've ever wanted is that you give us both a chance. Please. I don’t want to lose you."

After Robbie had brought the lines to _Eight Letters_ over his thin lips, he'd also found it much easier to give Gary the following, sincere, and clarifying words. He had actually managed to give him his true love and that Mark had never really stood in his way. So now, Robbie hoped more than implicitly that he could somehow get a reaction from Gary. But he didn’t have to wait a long time. But the said reaction was limited to a single tear, which was instantly kissed by Robbie. With this little kiss on the cheek, Gary closed his eyes for a moment, feeling a very warm shower, which he hadn’t felt for a long time. After studying the various colors of the world again, he looked into the most beautiful and gentlest green ever seen. By the way, he could see in his eyes a certain longing that had burnt in Gary himself. Something that was in him since a whole eternity considered extinguished. But now that Robbie had already exchanged such a long and intense eye contact, exactly this one flame reawakened to new life and let the sparks spray so that it was almost unnatural. With this newly-born yearning, their faces slowly approached each other until the two of them found themselves shortly afterwards, and yet in fact, in a kiss that was only once cautious and then gentle and intimate. It was simply indescribable. While the two former friends, adversaries, and present-day lovers allied their souls together, forgetting everything around them, Gary felt not only how all the spirits were awakened, but also how his weakened body got new strength. So the longer her kiss lasted, the more he felt himself again. He heard a tremendous strength in him, where he could really banish this very oppressive and heavy burden of the world from his heart. ...It was such an incredibly good-feeling and beautiful feeling that Gary wouldn’t give up again.

Gary and Robbie were going to get away from each other and see each other in the eyes. The fact that they saw each other was a love that had been too long aroused and never expressed which had now more than finally found its way to daylight and thus had no longer to hide. A love which had hit her roots already already in early nineties and stood now only in full of blossom. Through their common past and eternal attachment, it felt something like that from so right that none of the both not was sometimes in the state in addition, her look each other even to some extent could turn away. While the one exhaled the air, the other breathed in the air again. It was as if the two would enter into a souls union, which from this day onwards should continue for all eternity.

 

For a quarter of an hour, the two long-loved ones were still sitting there, staring at each other until they were disturbed by a somewhat distant and familiar voice: "Here you are. ...We were worried."

Gary and Robbie looked deeply into his eyes again, until the latter turned his eyes away and looked in the direction from where the voice came. As you could guess, it was no less than her three guys, who were getting closer and closer together. While Gary stiffened a little and didn’t know how to behave towards them, Robbie quickly took his hand and whispered to him that he did not have to worry. After all, it was only Howard, Jason and Mark, who just wanted to have their old Gary back. His friends, who’s were worried about him.

When the three broke into the two missing people, they just sat down and before any embarrassingly silence could arise, Jason tried to start a conversation which should not be too stiff, obtrusive or even distressing for Gary.

"I have to say that this is a nice place. Here one can actually live it. …Good weather. Pleasant temperature. Nice people. An easy life-style. ...And not to forget, a wonderful view real can be seen."  
"Yes. There one can become quite really envious. This is really the perfect place to settle down forever ...or to think about certain things. I ..." Howard allowed himself to be engaged in this kind of conversation, but was then oblivious to his spouse, who wanted to tell him that he should take better care of what he was doing, and finally interrupted himself.  
"Tell me, Rob. What is your arm doing? I mean, do you still have a lot of pain, or is it to withstand?" Mark wanted to know about the state of their health by way of a small detour, trying to get the little conversation between them, slowly and more than carefully in one direction which was somehow unavoidable.  
"Everything is fine." Robbie merely said, giving Gary a small smile, which he could only return half.  
"And Gaz, what’s about your wrist?" Mark finally jumped voluntarily into the ice-cold water, trying his luck to make Gary talk.

On which the appealed did not express himselfes at first, and continued to seek his salvation in the eyes of his counterpart. Since as long as he could loses himself in these wonderful green eyes, he felt the presence of the three just still thus as tolerable.

"By the way ...This I didn’t want. Really. You have to believe me. ...I am sorry more than all other and honestly." Howard couldn’t help but excuse himself and immediately, with Gary for the spasm he was attached, even though he felt a more than warning glance from Jason.

For a brief minute, or perhaps two, the icy silence was created, which Jason somehow wanted to prevent by all means and absolutely. Mark couldn’t make a real reproach of it, because he had only meant it well, and he wanted to ask Gary carefully through the flower, if he had recovered from the events in the last few days. Then Howard, with his oversized and slightly clumsy feet, had to make up the previously worked out immediately. Oh really. The guy sometimes didn’t really know how he could hold back with his emotions behind the mountain and often shot again over the actual goal.

"It’s allright. I mean ...I just fell unhappy." Gary then made the ice melt, Robbie being mentally encouraged, trying to explain himself in a small, rough, trembling voice, because that was him three guilt in a certain way, "I ...I... I. ...I'm sorry I just ran away, but I ...I couldn’t stand it anymore. It ...it just hurt too much that you ...you... ."

Further Gary simply didn’t come. It was difficult enough to find the right words without falling into a void with the following content ...and even though Robbie was sitting in front of him.

"That we, in your eyes, enjoy all the happiness of life and that you have somehow ...rejected us from us?" Jason Gary said with an exceedingly gentle voice that he could already guess what he wanted to get out of.  
To this rather true statement, Gary closed his eyes and rubbed them until they began to ache and then he gave a simple nod with a soft sob.  
"First of all, you don’t have to apologize for running away from us and simply leaving the country ...and if so, then we are the ones who have to apologize to you. I mean, after all, we weren’t entirely innocent. You had said it yourself, that it all started with our wedding. If we had known you were from your parents... Well, you already know what I'm getting at. Then our guestlist would have been quite different. So I can only tell you one thing, and even if it is difficult for you ...just simply forget them. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Neither to those, us, or what is much more importantly, to yourselfs. For it you are able too much. I beg you, Gary. Don’t speak for God's sake that you have nothing and no one else. This is not true. ...Actually, you need to know better that you are special for all of us, and that from the beginning. ...Just imagine that Doug and I are your parents, Mark your brother and Rob ...more than just your friend!" Jason, like so often, took the talking and tried to convince Gary with words, that he was by no means self-explaining himself to a marginal figure and that he was never really alone, whereby with the last sentence he let him know that the latter could show quietly his open love for Robbie.

 

No sooner had Jason spoken the last five words, Gary gave his one-year-old friend a quick and surprised look, with Robbies's glide much more to Mark.

"I hope you don’t think that we are any tensioners or something. ...But we've seen you kissing and then Mark has told us how much you for Rob really mean’s ...and so we've put together one and one. The fact that you feel quite apparently the same for him what for us now more than is unequivocal. ...What with it now also your quarrel of that time had explained and you never lost a bad word against him and why you had searched the distance to Jay and me." Howard revealed to him quickly as they came to their knowledge and possessed it for Gary now more than an absolute understanding of why he was so opposed to them, and in a certain way only wanted to be a little distant.  
"And I had never really done anything to you, right?" Mark asked Gary afterwards, hoping that he would be jealous of him, although there was no reason for it.  
"No." Gary shook his head briefly, trying to excuse himself, "You should know I'm very sorry I missed you ...that unsightly scar in your face."  
"Oh, it's half as wild, and I've forgiven you for a long time. I mean, to me was always repeated that I would lack certain corners and edges. ...Thanks to you now I have some." Mark accepted his and already long stale apology with his most beautiful smile and saw in this not exactly beauty ideals, even something positive.

Since Gary had seriously thought that Mark could hate him for it, fell to him with it from his shoulders and particularly from the heart, a more than oversized load, so he couldn’t help but take him immediately into his arms, eases whereupon again to Howard and Jason, obviously and overjoyed, gave to their former lost lamb in their middle, him an amicable slap.

While Gary and Mark to himself still lay in the arms and rested on the back of the first mentioned two extremely warm hands, came up to the old person shortly after already a few hot tears which heat up in within from seconds through his easily cheeks there rolled and on the shoulder some smaller down dripped. But this time there were tears of relief that Gary couldn’t feel reliefed.

"Thank you ...and my heartfelt congratulations on your engagement." Gary whispered to Mark.  
"Because now everything’s allright again. ...How does it look, do you not want to come with us again back to England?“ Jason didn’t want to disturb the image of the two of them and asked Gary, whether he could imagine, that he returned with them together to England.

On this one question, Gary dismissed his roughly equal friend from his embrace, gave Robbie a quick glance then wandered these in the direction of horizon further, until finally he answered: "To be honest. …No. No offense, but I like it here and I wouldn't want to turn this back on the ground very unhappily."  
"I can understand somehow." Howard remarked a bit bitterly, but he could understand why his buddy didn’t allow himself to be softened ...that he really wanted to stay here.  
"Well, we'll have to return sometime. But that still has some time and we wouldn’t get so fast a flight to England anyway. So if you do not mind, we could stay here for a couple of weeks and do something together. ...Of course only if you want it." Jason knew only too well that the time of the farewell would come and suggested that they could stay here for the two three weeks.  
"You can stay here for as long as you want." Gary had absolutely nothing against it and was secretly even glad that they only wanted to stay for a few weeks.  
"Good to know. From this day on, you will not get rid of me in anyway. Where you are, I will be. ...No matter what comes, I'll stay by your side. Forever." Robbie let his lover know that he would stay with him forever.

After Robbie brought these more than serious words about his thin and starved lips, and Gary looked at him with exceedingly in love, the latter was already immediately taken by his great love in an intimate embrace and they found themselves in an extremely passionate kiss. All these many years, which once stood between them, and so they had hardly exchanged a word with one another, were completely forgotten. Only and alone, their abyss, longtime and immortal love to each other, remained, and from now on should determine their common time and connect them forever.

 

So the friends, while Gary and Robbie kissed most of the time over and over, sat on the beach and let this beautiful nature take effect on theirselfs. It was really a wonderful day. The sun burned down on the reunited five friends, giving them the warm feeling that from now on, no great dramas will happen. The eternal shadow of the past few years had thus disappeared. This long-lasting nothingness had actually completely withdrawn and even left behind something with which no one would think possible. In addition to a whole new bond between the five friends and former band-fellows of Take That, there was now another love in their middle, which had taken a long time to develop at all and to come to light.

The next three weeks were almost like flying and after Gary and Robbie had brought their three friends to the airport, it was time to say goodbye to each other. A farewell, which had shouldn’t mean forever. Even though they now went their own way, they remained in contact and of course ...friends for all lifetime!

 

**THE END**

 

Okay. Let me tell you one thing now, that there's a little sequel. If you are interested, please let me know. ;-) 


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